On Tuesday, the Libyan Parliament failed to approve the state general budget submitted by the Government of the National Unity (GNU) for the fifth time, according to the Parliament’s official spokesman AbdAllah Belhaq.
Today’s session was spent in close discussions between the parliament’s Planning and Finance Committee, and the Ministerial Committee formed by Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba to amend the draft budget law.
The session saw a lot of criticism directed against Dbaiba regarding the second and third chapters of the budget, the Foreign Minister’s performance, the General Electricity Company’s (GECOL) work, and the government’s COVID-19 response.
Belhaq added that the Planning and Finance Committee would submit its final report on the draft budget at next Monday’s session. He also called on all MP’s to attend Monday’s meeting to deliberate the budget law, the draft direct presidential election law, and distribution of constituencies.
Since mid-April, the Parliament has continued to suspend the sessions devoted to adopting the general budget, amid internal divisions over the drafts submitted by the government.
Earlier this month, it postponed the budget approval session to the end of June, after two days of deliberations. The draft budget was set at 100 billion Libyan dinars ($22.25 billion US dollars).
The Parliament requested the government to reduce the draft budget to 78 billion dinars, but the government was only willing to reduce it to 90 billion dinars.