Next Year’s State Budget Passed

The State budget for 2007 was passed by the People’s Majlis on Thursday.

In the sitting, which was the last this year, the budget was passed by a majority of 36 votes out of the 45 members that were present at voting.

The voting was preceded by a prolonged debate on the budget, which itself was followed by discussions. The budget was then sent to a 15 member ad-hoc committee as stipulated in Majlis regulations.

Not a single amendment was proposed by the committee in the report, although 21 recommendations were passed on to the government.

In the discussions that followed the committee report, however, members proposed numerous amendments on various areas of interest. But not one of these 47 amendments was passed when put to vote, which led some members to protest.

Some of the amendments included suggestions to: consolidate all social security allocations for various government offices under one ministry, to provide health insurance to all citizens and to avoid a budget deficit even if projected revenue is not achieved.

Other suggestions were to make provisions for providing school uniforms and books free, to reduce office administrative expenditure by 50 per cent and to make Majlis approval essential for budgetary reallocation.

In addition, amendments to allocate 12% of total budget each year for Health and Education and limiting the budgetary spending to 60% of GDP were also suggested.

Some of the members who protested after the amendments failed to pass expressed regret that proposals made in the public’s interest, such as those involving education and health, were being rejected.

All speakers at Thursday’s meeting stressed that the government needed to give more importance to the recommendations made in the report of the ad-hoc committee.

State Minister Abdullah Jihad attended the Majlis and finished the discussions.