KABUL - A number of 'Meshrano Jirga or upper house of Parliament members on Tuesday said some backward provinces had been neglected in preparation of annual budget for next financial year.
On February 5, Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal presented the first-ever nine-month budget, with a total outlay of 244.3 billion Afghanis ($4.9 billion) to the upper house for next Afghan fiscal year beginning March 21.
Briefing senators, Zakhilwal said a major part of the budget would be used on security and development sectors. An amount of 134.3 billion afs had been set aside for the general budget and 110 billion afs for development activities, he said.
The annual budgets for coming years would now start from December 22 based on amendments in budget rules by Parliament on October 17, 2011. Officials say early approval of the budget would help the government start work on development projects.
Taking part in the debate, Sifatullah Haqmal, a senator from central Logar province, said various provinces had been treated unequally in the draft. He said the main reason behind insufficiently planned budget was that the backward provinces had no member in the Cabinet.
"Unnecessary projects have been approved for some provinces, while those provinces which need such projects are ignored," he said without naming a particular province.
Hafiz Abdul Qayyum, a senator from Nuristan province, also said provinces which needed development schemes had been sidelined in the proposed budget. "There is no member in the Cabinet from Nuristan, therefore no schemes are allotted to that province," he said.
Another senator, Abdul Wahab Irfan, who heads the parliament finance and budget commission, on the other hand said several ministries had failed to utilize the budget for the outgoing year due to poor management.
On January 14, the Wolesi Jirga or lower house, said most of government institutions had been unable to utilize even 50 percent of the development budget this year.
On Monday, Wolesi Jirga members, with a majority vote, decided to summon 15 ministers and a dozen departmental heads to brief lawmakers on their failure to effectively use budgetary allocations during the outgoing Afghan fiscal year.
The parliamentarians voted to summon the officials concerned in coming sessions and if their answers were not convincing, they would face a vote of no confidence.
Ministries including foreign affairs, economy, commerce, information and culture, counternarcotics, refugee and repatriate, justice, rural rehabilitation and development, transport and aviation, hajj and religious affairs, higher education, agriculture, power and energy, finance and borders have failed to utilize fully their budgets.
According to the Parliament Finance and Budget Commission head, Amir Khan Yaar, the mentioned ministries and some departments had so far used only 11 to 39 percent of their development budget during the outgoing fiscal year that ends on March 21.