Parliament OKs additional three days to pass MVR 6.5bn supplementary budget

The Parliament, on Tuesday, passed an amendment to allow an additional three days to pass the MVR 6.5 billion supplementary budget.

The 2023 supplementary budget, along with the 2024 budget, were presented to the Parliament by Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer on Tuesday morning.

Baarah MP Ahmed Abdulla submitted an amendment, proposing that the budget debate be held in one day, with five minutes allocated for each lawmaker. The Budget Committee will receive two days to review it, after which lawmakers will receive two minutes each to debate on the committee report.

The amendment passed with a majority vote of 38-43.

The supplementary budget submitted to the Parliament includes MVR 3.1 billion for recurrent expenditure and MVR 3.3 billion for capital expenditure.

The allotment for recurrent expenditure includes MVR 1.8 billion for subsidies, MVR 1.2 billion for Aasandha – which will increase the budget allocated for Aasandha this year to MVR 2.3 billion.

Meanwhile, the allotment for capital expenditure includes MVR 1.7 billion for PSIP projects.

With the MVR 6.5 billion supplementary budget, the state budget for 2023 will rise to MVR 49.3 billion.