The committee of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) tasked with reviewing and scrutinizing the 2023/2024 draft budget has forwarded it to the budget cluster for final compilation, the assembly’s spokesman said.
John Agany Deng, the spokesperson of the TNLA, told Radio Tamazuj Wednesday after meeting Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth at parliament that the draft budget is undergoing a second stage of scrutiny before it is tabled for the second reading next Monday.
“The scrutinizing was at the committee level and it has now gone to the cluster. From the cluster level, it will be summed up within this week and it will become a document and then it will be submitted to the house for the second reading,” he explained. “I think the deliberation was good and there is nothing much about it, it was just a matter of aligning the figures.”
According to Agany, issues to do with the budget for elections and others will be addressed in plenary.
“You know that election is next year but people should prepare for it in time,” he added. “So, each expending agency predicts the way they have seen it and all these hanging issues should be addressed in plenary.”
On his part, Information Minister Michael Makuei said the TNLA will address the disparity in the budget.
“The budget has some shortcomings here and there but nevertheless, it is a budget and we have had a discussion over it,” he said. However, if there are any other outstanding issues that have not been addressed, this may be looked at by the committee and by the legislators as the final authority on all these issues.”
On 20 June, Finance Minister Dier Tong Ngor tabled the 2023/2024 fiscal year budget, amounting to SSP 2 trillion, before parliament. The proposed budget has a deficit of SSP 267 billion.
The draft budget includes a 400 percent increment in the salaries of civil servants and organized forces as promised by President Salva Kiir last year.