The Parliament has given its members three days to approve the Supplementary Budget submitted to the Parliament today.
The Supplementary Budget as well as the Proposed State Budget for next year was presented to the Parliament earlier today by Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer.
Once the Minister finished presenting the budgets, the newly-elected Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Aslam requested the MPs to propose how they wish to move forward with approving the Supplementary Budget.
MP for Baarashu Constituency Ahmed Abdullah proposed how the MPs must move with the Supplementary Budget. MP Ahmed proposed debating the Supplementary for one day before sending the Budget to the Budget Committee for its report.
He further proposed to give the Budget Committee two days to conclude its work, submit the report to the floor, and take a vote on the matter.
MP for Henveiru South Constituency Hussain Shaheem seconded this proposal.
The proposal was then put to vote and 38 out of the 43 MPs present at today's session voted to pass this proposal.
Some Parliamentarians voiced concern over the amount of time given to approve the budget while some argued that the Supplementary Budget was submitted in violation of the Public Finances Act.
The Finance Ministry proposed a supplementary budget of MVR 6.5 billion which takes the total budget for 2023 to MVR 49.3 billion.
