Parliament passes MVR 50.5 mln budget for Audit Office

The Parliament on Tuesday passed the budget for Auditor General’s Office as sent to the Parliament.

Thirty-four MPs who had cast their votes on Tuesday, voted to pass the budget. None of the opposition MPs had participated in the vote, having chosen to protest inside the Parliament floor, as the session was being chaired by Speaker Abdullah Maseeh.

Parliament’s Financial Committee passed a budget of MVR 50,599,995 for 2018 by the full vote of the Committee. Neither pro-Government nor anti-Government MPs had argued against the budget.

The Committee passed a budget of MVR 45 million for 2017.

In addition to the proposed budget, the Committee had granted MVR 2 million additionally.

All MPs of the Committee had said there was nothing concerning about the proposed budget, as the only increases were administrative ones such as salaries and traveling expenses.

The MPs had also noted that the Office was functioning properly.

As such, this year, 78 audit reports had been completed.

The Office is accountable to the Financial Committee. All reports completed by the Office have to be submitted to the Committee. The decisions in the reports will be implemented by the Committee and relevant state bodies.

Finance Ministry reported that they were preparing to submit the budget to Parliament before October 31st, as well as a supplementary budget.