Ministry of Finance Responds to Recent Remarks by Chief Executive on Possible Elimination of Projects in Central Areas
The Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, who is also one of the presidential candidates, recently claimed during an election campaign that it sounds like Acting Minister of Finance had suddenly wanted to eliminate all central areas projects, but he had prevented the Minister of Finance from doing so. The Chief Executive expresses that the reason for eliminating the projects by Acting Minister of Finance is one of Afghanistan donor’s bank demand.
Ministry of Finance and the Acting Minister of Finance himself rejects the Chief Executive’s remarks and calls it baseless and out of reality. The National Budget Document, after its adoption and signature by the President, assumes the status of a legal document in which projects are incorporated in accordance with the comments, recommendations and considerations of the people, cabinet members and people's representatives in accordance with Afghanistan's development priorities and after approval by Parliament goes to the president to be signed.
Likewise, the leadership of the Ministry of Finance emphasizes that no project has been eliminated from the national budget document, nor has the Finance Ministry leadership decided to do so. In terms of working processes, it is not feasible for the Acting Minister of Finance to add or remove projects alone. On the other hand, none of the banks has called for the elimination of central zone projects.
The mid-year review of some projects funds has been decreased considering the capacity of the departments’ expenditures by the end of FY-1398. It is worth mentioning that, one of the major goals of mid-year review is to decrease funds to poorly performing projects and activities of the departments and allocate them to better-performing projects and activities. This is done to prevent stagnation of funds in one hand and make full use of funds on the other hand.
Additionally, the projects will be included in the national budget documents after the economic evaluation by Directorate of Public Investment of Policy Department- Ministry of Finance, approval of it by Audit committee of the projects and finally approval by the budget hearing committee. The Ministry of Finance is not the only one involved in the decision-making process, but Ministry of Economy, the President’s representative and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Therefore, considering the national budget processing and the projects' inclusion the mechanism in the national budget document, it becomes clear that the Chief Executive’s remark is completely baseless and inconsistent with the facts. The leadership of the Ministry of Finance calls on all candidates not to disrupt the government's working process with the campaign process and do not disturb public opinion in this regard.
