Parliament on Wednesday concluded its plenary debate on the state budget for 2017.
The MVR26 billion budget was presented to Parliament last week.
and the Speaker allocated 22 minutes for every Member of Parliament to express their views regarding the budget proposal.
Including the 37 members who spoke during debate time on Wednesday, a total of 66 members spoke on the proposed budget. Each member was allocated 22 minutes to express their views on the budget proposal.
According to the budget proposal, the recurrent expenditure for next year will be lowered by MVR2 billion to MVR14 billion, while the recurrent expenditure for the current year stands at MVR16 billion.
51% of next year’s budget will be spent on recurrent expenditure while 49% is allocated for capital expenditure.