Budget meeting opens tomorrow
President Peter Mutharika is scheduled to open the 2016/17 Budget Meeting of Parliament in Lilongwe tomorrow [Friday, May 20].
This is the third meeting in the 46th session of Parliament that will consider the 2016/17 national budget is expected to run for eight weeks.
During the deliberations, Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodal Gondwe is expected to present the budget statement for parliamentarians to debate and consider passing it before July 8 2016.
A statement issued by presidential press secretary Mgeme Kalirani says Mutharika is expected to arrive at Parliament Building at around 9:30 am.
According to the Business Committee of Parliament, the House will start debating Mutharika’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) from Monday next week before going into cluster meetings.
However, Malawians are waiting with bated breath on the outcome of the controversial and much-awaited Access to Information (ATI) Bill which government has promised to table despite public outcry to have it in its previous form.
There are also several other bills carried forward from the previous meeting which are expected to be re-tabled together with ministerial statements, according to Leader of the House Francis Kasaila.
Last year, Parliament approved a K930 billion budget which opposition legislators were unwilling to support as they demanded Gondwe to produce a comprehensive report into the audit of government accounts from 2009 to 2014.
Do you think 98 percent of Malawians know about ATI? Malawians journalists can someone to laugh. Are these trained journalists or the imposed ones? It is only 1.1 percent of Nyasas are concerned with ATI kkkkkkkkkk.