The House of Representatives received on Saturday committee reports on the draft of the general budget for the next fiscal year.
Sources at the House of Representatives told Daily News Egypt that the Planning and Budget Committee will present reports to the General Committee, which in turn will put up the draft budget for discussion and voting.
The Planning and Budget Committee held discussions with the education, scientific research, and health committees for increasing the total allocations of the three ministries to 10% of GNP in accordance with the Constitution.
Health and education allocations in the next fiscal year’s draft budget are set at EGP 151bn out of total expenses of EGP 936bn.
The Ministry of Finance’s estimated the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at EGP 3.2tn over the coming fiscal year compared to EGP 2.8tn during the current fiscal year.
“We called health, education, and scientific research committees to write a report on that subject and a meeting will be held with the minister of finance and minister of planning and administrative development this week to listen to the government’s opinions to find a solution without increasing the budget deficit,” sources said.
A senior official in the Planning and Budget Committee criticised the way health, education, and scientific research allocations were identified in the constitution. He further added that the method used to determine the ratio is incorrect. The priority is not to increase the financial allocations, but to consider programmes where these funds are spent.”
In order to achieve this benefit, he said the government would be stuck between violating the constitution or by increasing the deficit over the target ratio of 9.8%.
He explained that some officials in the government told the Planning and Budget Committee that the crisis is to be overcome through the ministries sovereign property or private funds.
The committee asked the government to develop a new system of pensions, to develop Nasser Social Bank and the Principal Bank for Development & Agricultural Credit (PBDAC) and to reconsider the budgets of the Agricultural Research Centre and how to finance it, said Hussein Issa, chairperson of the Budget and Planning Committee in parliament.
He added that the government promised us to apply the balancing programmes on seven ministries in the following fiscal year. In addition, the government is to submit a quarterly report on performance to parliament.
