Monrovia – The House of Representatives has received from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning the draft Liberia National budget for the fiscal year 2016/2017 with a total projected revenue of five hundred and fifty-five point five million dollars.
Of the amount, according to Finance Minister Boima Kamara, US$30.2M will come from grants, while US$30.1m has been set as contingent domestic revenue but according to him, the contingency is due to the fact that the national legislature must approve of some measures before these sources can be realized.
The draft budget also contains allotted amount of US$77M for health, US$83M for education while social development gets US$10.5m. The draft budget allots US$20M for election, US$10M for UNMIL drawdown, US$5M for Agriculture and US$15M for road construction.
The draft National budget also allotted US$3M for road maintenance and US$1.5 M for the rehabilitation of the Roberts International Airport runways.
“Honorable speaker, by no measures that these amounts are enough to handle the issues mentioned but at this point this is what we can afford. What we have done in this budget is to prepare an unfunded contingent envelope of hundred and forty million which considers a number of key investments that will help diversify and grow the economy.
“Honorable speaker with these summaries I wish to thank you and on behalf of the President of the Republic of Liberia present to you the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2016/2017 and if need be, me and my team will be available to provide addition information and clarification.”
Section 11(1) of the Public Financial management Act of 2009, requires the Executive Branch of Government to submit to the legislature, the proposed budget along with companying documents no later than two months before the start of the fiscal year.
Henry Karmo (0886522495) [email protected]