The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has submitted the draft for the national budget to the Wolesi Jirga, the Lower House of Parliament, one month ago, but it has not has been approved so far, spokesman of the ministry Shamroz Khan Masjidi said on Saturday.  

Masjidi said they are concerned about the consequences of delay in budget approval on project activities and salary payments for government employees.

He said 13 days have remained from the current fiscal year, but they are still waiting for MPs approval on the budget. 

“We urge lawmakers to approve the new fiscal year budget as soon as possible. We need to have the budget approved ahead of the fiscal year to spend more development budget in the next year against this year,” said Masjidi. 

Some MPs meanwhile said the national budget document is under assessment and that they will approve it after their assessments are done. 

“It is in the financial and budget commission and the budgetary units are under assessments. I hope the commission will finish its work soon,” said Sadiqi Zada Nili, member of financial and budget commission of the Wolesi Jirga. 

An economic affairs analyst, Abdul Wase Haidari, meanwhile work on a number of development projects will face problems if the national budget is not approved ahead of the fiscal year.

“Parliament should approve the budget soon to prevent problems in implementation of development projects,” Haidari said.

The Ministry of Finance 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 ministry, 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 revenue.

The MoF last week said that so far this year, government’s budgetary units have spent almost 75 percent of their development budgets.

The MoF spokesman Shamroz Khan Masjidi said that by the end of the year, development budget spending will reach at least 80 percent.

He said that this year, government has managed to collect over 174 billion AFs from domestic revenues which also surpasses the previous year’s target.

Masjidi said that along with an increase in budget spending this year, government has been able to increase revenue collections from domestic resources by 14 percent compared to a year before.