Nominated and Acting Minister of Finance: the budget to buy wheat from Helmand province and national water management projects will not be deducted

On May 1, 2020 H.E Abdul Hadi Arghanidiwal, Acting Minister of Finance, met Nasir Ahmad Durrani, Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock; Moiburahman Karimi, Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development; and Mohammad Khan Takal, Director of National Water Management Authority.

In this meeting, Acting Minister of Finance discussed re-allocation of financial resources that are already in use for the projects that cannot be implemented; or they are no longer in priority for these national entities. 

Considering the current situation of the Coronavirus pandemic, we need to fight against this and help the poor and vulnerable; based on the requirements, we need to cancel some of the projects that have not passed their procurement process; or their implementation results are not satisfactory; or the ones that no longer has priority, and re-allocate their budgets to fight against this epidemic. We have invited national entities’ leadership to have this process in a way that important national project would not be negatively impacted, he added.

Leadership of mentioned entities stated that they are ready to act upon the call, and they have done their studies to prepare the list; meanwhile, they are communicating with the General Directorate of Budget at MoF. We will re-allocate the budget of these projects to fight against Corona epidemic, but we need assurance to have enough funding for these projects after this crisis ends in the middle of fiscal year when the normalcy resumes.   

At the end, it was concluded that all the re-allocations from the canceled projects need to be identified in cooperation with MoF for next steps to be taken.