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Thursday 2 March 2017

SWAZI MPS REJECT NATIONAL BUDGET

Members of Parliament in Swaziland rejected the entire national budget and called for it to be replaced with one that favoured ordinary people.

The unprecedented move came on Wednesday (1 March 2017) when the budget delivered the previous Friday by Martin Dlamini, Swazi Minister for Finance, was supposed to be debated and approved.

Instead, MPs rejected the E21.8 billion (US$1.66bn) national budget. A motion called for the budget to be scrapped because it was not responding to the needs of the people.

They called for a revised budget to be tabled that addressed the needs for portable clean water; feeder roads networks; increase of community projects budget; an increase in the elderly and people living with disability grants, taking into consideration the cost of living; an increase in the allocation of the ministry of agriculture for food security and the construction of new health clinics.

The Minister of Finance was told to bring a new budget to Parliament on Friday (3 March 2017).

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