Thursday
18th Apr 2024
Dhivehi Edition
Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer.
The Citizen's Majlis has passed the government's proposed budget for the coming year.
The MVR 37 billion budge was passed with 63 votes in favour from the 73 in attendance. 8 opposition MPs abstained from the vote and had vocally protested the budget while the votes were being cast.
The government had originally proposed MVR 36.92 billion, but the Majlis had recommended an increase in MVR 73 million.
The budget has also listed a record deficit of MVR 9.7 billion. During the sessions of the Budget Committee, the Auditor General had remarked that some of the means of gaining income that the State had proposed would require changing the laws. He therefore assumed that it would be unlikely that the State would earn the expected income.
The Auditor General had also remarked that the budget deficit may rise to MVR 10 billion.
The budget had projected that the State would earn more than MVR 2 billion in free foreign aid. The governor of the Maldives Monetary Authority expressed his scepticism as to whether the State would receive this amount in aid. It is worth noting that the government had not received all of the foreign aid that it had expected for the current year.
The government has also decided to print MVR 2.5 billion in the year coming year to manage its expenditures. The government has said that it would repay the MVR 4.4 billion that it had printed; in the form of an overdraft on the Maldives Monetary Authority's public account; in 50 years.