Planning and budget committee to study budget reports next month: MPs

Health committee demands increasing financial allocations for sector by EGP 20.7bn to reach EGP 82bn

The planning and budget committee of parliament plans to hold, during the first week of June, its first meeting to study the reports of the specialised qualitative committees regarding the draft budget for the next fiscal year.
Mervat Elksan, member of the committee, said that the specialised committees will present all the reports with their demands and observations regarding the draft budget this week.
She added that the committee is studying these observations and demands, together with Ministry of Finance officials. A final report on the draft budget will be sent to the general committee in order to set a date to discuss and vote on them.
Several committees demanded increasing the financial allocations for some sectors, with education and health being the most prominent within the context of adherence to the constitutional stipulations regarding providing allocations for the three sectors worth 10% of Egypt's GDP.
Daily News Egypt revealed that the health committee of parliament demanded increasing the financial allocations of the sector by EGP 20.6bn to reach EGP 82bn. The education committee demanded increasing the sector's financial allocations to EGP 43bn, with EGP 15bn for higher education and scientific research and EGP 28bn for basic education before university.
Silvia Nabil, member of the committee, said that studying the demands of some sectors is taking place within the framework of redistributing allocations in accordance with the budget's financial resources.
The financial statement issued by the Ministry of Finance showed a deficit of 8.4% and a growth rate of 5.8% in the draft budget for next fiscal year.
The targeted tax revenues during next financial year are at EGP 770bn and other revenues are at about EGP 200bn.
Medhat El-Sherif, representative of parliament's economic committee, said that his committee has completed discussions on the budgets of various economic bodies within the draft budget for next fiscal year. The technical secretariat of the committee was assigned to draft recommendations and send them to the planning and budget committee.
He added that the committee has many observations on the work of economic bodies during the upcoming period to turn losses into profits.
Several economic bodies have requested increasing financial allocations for next financial year. The most prominent ones are the Egyptian Commercial Service, the Export Support Fund, and the Egypt Expo and Convention Authority (EECA).