Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, chairing the House
Following the submission of the National Budget Framework Paper (BFP) by the Finance Minister, Speaker, Anita Among, has charged Members of Parliament to urgently embark on processing the 2024/2025 National Budget.
The BFP is Government’s overall strategy document for the budget, and provides the link between the Government’s policies and the annual budget. It contains information such as revenue projections, the resource envelope, priority interventions and proposed sectoral expenditure plans.
Speaker, Among prescribed new timelines for the budget cycle, which she said will give Parliament adequate time to scrutinize the budget and produce a quality product.
“The earlier we prepare the budget, the better. This business of processing tax bills on the last day together with Appropriation Bill is not good. We for example need to process tax bills early such that we know where we are getting money [from],” Among said during the plenary sitting on Wednesday, 12 December 2023.
She asked the sectoral committees to scrutinize the Budget Framework Paper and report to the Committee on the Budget by 15 January, 2024, earlier than the deadline provided for in the Public Finance Management Act, 2015 which prescribes 01 February.
The Budget Committee will then report to Parliament on the Budget Framework Paper by 25 January 2024.
Among also directed that the Ministerial Policy Statements be tabled by 10 March 2024 from where the Leader of the Opposition draws the alternative policy statement. The Leader of Opposition will have to present alternative policy statements by 20 March 2024.
By 25 March 2024, the Speaker directed that the proposed National Budget for 2024/2025 should be tabled in Parliament.
This is proceeded by the processing of ministerial statements by House Sectoral Committees which the Speaker asked to report to the House by 15 April, 2024.
Parliament will then process the tax bills which Among said should be ready by 01 May 2024.