The Parliament of the Maldives has sent back the supplementary budget proposed by the government for not meeting the requirements of the Public Finance Act. The Ministry of Finance proposed a USD422 million supplementary budget to cover the expenditures for this year's state budget.
Director of Communications at the Parliament Hassan Ziyau said the supplementary budget did not meet the requirements of the Public Finance Act. As such, the budget was sent back after requesting the finance ministry to make the appropriate corrections.
The Public Finance Act states that if a request is made for the approval of additional funds or a supplementary budget, it should be formulated and submitted to the Parliament one month prior to the date of requirement. The proposed budget should include the estimated state expenditure and revenue, and the state expenditure and revenue during the previous fiscal year. The budget should also include a summary of the recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure. However, it is unclear what conditions were not met in the supplementary budget sent by the finance ministry.
It is the second time the finance ministry has been asked to fulfill the requirements of the supplementary budget. The Parliament initially did not reject the budget proposal and instead requested the finance ministry to submit the missing information. However, the information submitted by the ministry did not meet the requirements.
The finance ministry submitted a supplementary budget to the Parliament in accordance with Article 96 of the Constitution, which states that the ministry can propose a supplementary budget if the expenditure exceeds the projected estimate in the approved state budget. The ministry stated that the supplementary budget will mainly be spent on Public Sector Investment Programmes (PSIP), national health insurance, subsidies, and capital contributions to state-owned companies. The ministry stated that the productivity for PSIP projects increased during the year and other expenditures exceeded the budgeted amount, adding that the planned expenditure reduction measures have not been properly implemented.