The People’s Majlis has approved a state budget of MVR 34.92 billion for 2021.

68 lawmakers voted in favour of the budget with amendments by the budget committee at Monday’s sitting, while one voted against.

Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer presented the MVR 34.7 billion budget to parliament on November 9.

He had highlighted that state expenditure is expected to reach MVR 33.3 billion while MVR 1.5 billion of the proposed budget is to be allocated for debt repayment. The projected total revenue including grants is MVR 17.79 billion.

The budget committee brought various changes to it during the review period including to the projected revenue; this was increased to MVR 21 billion from MVR 17.79 billion.

With this change, the committee added MVR 200 million to the proposed budget, increasing it to MVR 34.92 billion, in turn decreasing the current projected deficit of MVR 15.5 billion to MVR 12.3 billion.

Speaker Mohamed Nasheed had, at Monday's sitting, expressed disappointment over the MPs' lack of interest in the budget approval work, noting that only 18 out of the 86 lawmakers had participated in the committee report debate.