The state budget for 2021 has been placed on Monday’s agenda of the People’s Majlis.

The Minister of Finance, Ibrahim Ameer will be proposing the projected budget for 2021, at Monday’s parliament sitting.

The projected budget for the upcoming year was submitted at the parliament on October 31.

Speaker of Parliament and Former President Mohamed Nasheed revealed that each parliamentarian will be given 15 minutes during the debate stage once the budget is submitted.

Earlier, the ministry revealed that they will be submitting a state budget projected at MVR 35 billion for 2021.

The state budget for the concluding year had been reviewed and submitted to the People’s majlis, and the parliament had approved a state budget of MVR 37.8 billion for the ongoing year, out of the initially proposed MVR 37.5 billion. The Budget Committee added MVR 366 million to the projected budget, which brought the deficit up to 6.2 percent from 5.8 percent of GDP.

The state revenue was projected at MVR 29.9 billion, however, state revenue was lower than projected due to the impacts of the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic, on the country’s tourism industry.

Chief Financial Budget Executive at the Ministry Ahmed Saruvash Adam told local media outlets that the 2021 state budget is estimated to reach MVR 35 billion, which is MVR 4.6 billion less than the amount projected for this year’s budget.

Under law, the ministry is required to submit the state budget for the upcoming year by October 31, for approval from the People’s Majlis.

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the government’s revenues and expenditure were drastically affected which caused a shortage of MVR 15 billion in the state budget for the ongoing year.

In February this year, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had stated that the state budget for the upcoming year would be abundant in order to implement the government’s development pledges throughout the concluding year and 2021.

The state received an income of MVR 23.1 billion during 2019 and the state spent a total of MVR 28.3 billion. The budget deficit for 2019 reached MVR 5.2 billion.