The Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Sunday said that government is looking to increase next year’s development budget by 12 percent.  

While drafting the budget, government prioritized projects that directly benefit the people.

But some lawmakers in the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House of Parliament) have hit out over the claims, saying that the draft budget still has a lot of shortcomings that need to be resolved.

“We also consulted members of the public to identify the most important projects which benefit the people; to find out the public’s basic needs,” said Shamroz Khan Masjidi, MoF spokesman.

But lawmakers argue that government has dropped some of the development projects from the budget.

“The government has excluded a number of projects which institutions failed to implement and substituted these with new projects,” said an MP Ghulam Hussain Naseri.

MoF has allocated AFs 399 billion for the 1398 fiscal year’s budget, 69 percent of which has been allocated for the standard budget while the remaining 39 percent has been allocated for the development budget.

According to the deputy head of revenue and customs at the Ministry of Finance, Abdullah Raqibi, from the AFs 399 billion, AFs 275 billion will be allocated to the standard budget and the remaining will be put aside for the development budget.

The MoF figures show that 51 percent of the budget will be funded by foreign aid while 49 percent of it will be funded by national resources.

Figures obtained by TOLOnews for the past five years show that the national budget’s fund from foreign aid decreased from 71, 69, 66, 54 and 51 percent respectively over this time.

According to MoF, the share of the foreign aid in the national budget has decreased compared to previous years.

MoF also said that government is striving to boost domestic revenue to further decrease the share of foreign aid needed for the national budget.