Our beloved motherland passes through diverse security, political and economic troubles. Every problem has got its own dynamics and demands a variant solution. Putting their cognitive abilities into practice the public officials can reduce the size of problems if they cannot eradicate them. The politicians representing their electoral constitution not necessarily should come up to the expectation of their Electoral College but to the voice of faithfulness and sanity.
Basically, Afghanistan is an agricultural country – a non-industrial country. The agricultural production can’t fulfill the domestic requirements; hence it is unable to earn revenues for the country. Mostly it relies on foreign aids. The meager and conditional foreign aid provided by international donors is not enough to backup our endless needs. Consequently, Afghanistan suffers budget deficits.
To provide a sustainable backup to its financial needs, the government relies on loans accompanied with handsome amount of interest. According to finance commission head the total loans amounts to 2 billion Afghanis which were received from World Bank (WB) nine times, Asian Development Bank (ADB) 14 times, once from IMF, Islamic Development Bank (IDB) four times and Saudi Arabia Monitory Agency two times. A good amount is earmarked for interest of these loans. The international community lending a helping hand by providing aids to Afghanistan should be relied the most that can be done by establishing better relationships with them.
Given the future of security agreement of the Kabul-Washington remains undecided and the complete drawdown of the NATO coalition approaches, a grand expectation of future funding and financial support to the Kabul government seems scanty. Additionally, there are many other recommendations the international community anticipates of Kabul government to get done earning their confidence for future funding, amongst which maintenance of human rights stand prior.
The previous day, the budget of fiscal year 2013-2014 was put forth to Wolesi Jirga for discussion, subsequent to approval from Meshrano Jirga. The budget draft shows a scanty amount fixed for governance and public welfare whilst a huge amount of 64 percentage, allocated for security.
According to reports of Finance Commission Chief, the draft budget included 275 billion Afghanis ($4.82 billion) the general budget and at 168 billion Afs the development spending, 23 billion Afs of the development budget was discretionary, funds in hand the government’s kitty, 67 billion Afs non-discretionary and 78 billion Afs left over from previous years. The details read, 36 percent of the development funds would be spent on basic infrastructure projects, 13 percent on education, 29 percent on health, 21 percent on agriculture and rural development, with the rest going to other schemes.
The government and public officials must realize, the dream of a vibrant, progressive, developed Afghanistan can only materialize if a handsome amount of budget is allocated for education, health, infrastructure and governance. We must learn it that a healthy, literate and well governed Afghanistan is a secure Afghanistan.