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Debate in the 2014/15 National Budget, currently under way at New Parliament Building in Lilongwe, will go into the Committee of Supply sessions on Wednesday.
FOM speaking in an interview to leader of business in the house Francis Lazaro Kasaila explained that the house has since put in place proper plans that will give sufficient time for members to dedicate their time in passing each vote for 2014/2015 Budget estimates before parliament rises on October 3.
Kasaila further assured that to allow Committee of Supply to begin on Wednesday afternoon, the house will curtail General Debate on Budget this Tuesday afternoon as rules stipulates that such debate should not continue after tenth working day.
“Rules say that we should not debate budget for more than 14 calendar days. So in the afternoon of Tuesday we will curtail the debate and then the Minister of Finance will make his response to the issues raised by the members and we are hoping that the budget and Finance report will be ready by this Monday. The good thing is that because the budget and finance committee is only compiling reports from other committees, members were contributing to what they have agreed in the cluster committees.” Said Kasaila.
The house will have no much burden of discussing new issues that may compromise the pace of passing votes during Committee of Supply including passing the Budget Bill (Appropriation Bill) Kasaila said “Issues that would be raised by the Budget and Finance Committee have already been raised by the members when they were doing their contribution in the Chamber.”
“The planning is that when we start the Committee of Supply on Wednesday, by Friday we should be able to deal with all the votes but in case we do not manage to do that, at least by Monday we should be able to finish,” said Kasaila.
“But our planning was that the last week of our sitting we should dedicate it to bills like OPEC Fund Bill and other Ministerial Statements” said the Leader.
