Parliament in crisis meeting over budget timelines
Parliament is today holding a crisis meeting in the bid to process the budget within the confines of the law.
On table, is the budget framework paper for the Financial Year 2020/21 which is supposed to be adopted not later than February 1, 2020 in accordance with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) of 2015.
But for this particular budget framework to be adopted, Parliament must ensure that it complies with the National Development Plan (NDP), which is also yet to be processed by parliament.
The NDPIII, which is a springboard for the 2020/2021 budget all through up to 2024/2025 will also be debated and adopted today.
It is this crisis that has seen Parliament convene hurriedly. Whereas normal house sessions start at 2:00pm, today’s sitting started at10:00 am, chaired by the deputy Speaker, Mr Jacob Oulanyah.
“Honourable members we agreed that we shall sit this morning to handle a number of issues, most of them are bound by strict timelines,” Mr Oulanyah said.
“The report on the national development plan is ready; the one of the Budget Framework paper will be ready today; we should have handled them separately but because of delays we have to handle them together,” he added.
Timelines
February 1: Deadline for Parliament to pass budget framework paper.
March 15: Deadline for submission of Ministerial Policy Statements.
April 1: Deadline for annual budget to be presented to Parliament.
May 15: Budget committee presents budget report to parliament.
May 31: Deadline for Parliament to pass the budget.
