KABUL - The Wolesi Jirga or lower house of parliament on Saturday refused to approve an amended version of next fiscal year’s budget over what lawmakers called imbalanced accounts.
According to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), about 287 billion Afs has been set aside for general expenses and nearly 178 billion afs for development activities in the budget for the new fiscal year that starts from March 29, 2017.
Thirty-two percent of the budget --- 150 billion afs --- would come from domestic revenues and the rest from the international community in aid.
A 36 percent of the budget would go to the security sector, 21 percent to the infrastructure development, 13 percent to education, six percent to agriculture and the rest to other sectors. 
Amir Khan Yar, who heads the lower house’s financial commission, presenting his report about the budget to today session, said: “The lawmakers had extensively discussed about the 2017 draft budget and provided their suggestions in two weeks.”
He said the MPs added $63 million to development budget as part of suggested projects in the budget.
The draft budget has been discussed at many meetings and balance in development budget for provinces has also been considered, Yar added.
Seddiq Ahmad Usmani, a member of the financial commission, said $600,000 had been allocated to each province in the next budget.
However, he said there were no differences among MPs over the draft budget in recent meetings, but some lawmakers today did not accept the amendments.
Samiullah Samim, a lawmaker form Farah province, said no suggestions of other MPs, except the finance commission, had been considered in reviewing the budget document.
“The draft budget is prepared based on suggestions of the finance commission members while of others’ are ignored,” he said.
Other lawmakers held similar views. Speaker Abdur Raouf Ibrahimi asked the finance commission to hold a meeting again about the budget on Sunday and hand the draft over to the general session on Monday for a decision.

Under Article 98 of the Constitution, the general and development budgets are prepared in light of Meshrano Jirga’s recommendations before being sent to the Wolesi Jirga for final approval. (Pajhwok)