The government will on Tuesday propose its state budget for 2018 to be put on the agenda for the next parliamentary sitting, the Finance Ministry has confirmed.
While the ministry’s media official confirmed that it would be submitted to the parliament sometime on Tuesday, he had not commented on how much it is estimated to be.
Parliamentarians have told local news outlets that they believe the budget for 2018 will be larger than the record MVR 26.7 billion passed for this year.
However, the government had this month proposed a supplementary budget of 493 million which parliamentarians voted to provide it with last Thursday.
This supplementary budget was passed, with only votes from parliamentarians aligned with the ruling party as the opposition had boycotted the vote and protested on the floor, while the government had said it would generate 21.9 billion as profit, 9 million of which is yet to accounted for.
October 31st is the deadline for proposing the state budget for the coming year, as mandated by law. The budget will be put on the agenda for the parliamentary sitting to be held on Monday.
