‘Govt must give evidence of its previous spendings’
Dossier for remedying inflation
KUWAIT CITY, July 5: Before the end of the second session of the National Assembly, the Ministry of Finance submitted a proposal to allocate additional budget for ministries and other government departments for fiscal 2017/2018 to liquidate current assets (custody account) by withdrawing KD923 million from the sovereign fund, reports Al-Rai daily.
Chairman of the parliamentary Budgets and Final Accounts Committee MP Adnan Abdul-Samad said the endorsement of the budget and final account does not necessarily give the government a blank cheque, or that the committee will approve the proposal.
The MP indicated that for the committee to approve, the government has to provide evidence of its previous spending in the custody account. Consequently, Finance Minister Dr Nayef Al-Hajraf referred to the Assembly a dossier containing the mechanism for remedying inflation in the current assets account.
Proposal
He told the daily that the committee will meet during the parliamentary summer holiday to prepare its report concerning the government’s proposal on the additional budget, warning that the discussion will be long.
“The committee will not approve the proposal unless the government presents evidence that its expenses were done in a proper manner, without violations,” he noted.
“Some governmental bodies have no legal backing for spending and this is the reason why the committee reconsidered approving this proposal”, he revealed.
The MP explained that the committee would have rejected the government’s budget and final accounts in order to send a clear message to the government about dissatisfaction on the weak performance of concerned agencies in the departments of State finance.
However, representatives of the Ministry of Finance insisted on the importance of approving this budget and final accounts in order to avoid negative impact on the credit rating of the country.
He indicated that these justifications are not true since there is no relation between credit rating of the country and whether the final accounts are approved or not.