The committee examining the proposed supplementary budget has approved keeping details of expenditure from the State Budget 2024 confidential.
The State Budget 2024 was approved by the former Parliament for the current fiscal year. The government last week decided to supplement it with MVR 5 billion.
Finance Minister Moosa Zameer told the Parliament last week that the supplement was needed to settle expenditure for the remaining days of the year. He is expected to attend the committee on Monday.
MP Abdul Ghafoor Moosa from the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) proposed to find the details of expenditure from the State Budget 2024.
Four MDP MPs and Maldives Development Alliance (MDA) MP Mohamed Abbas voted in favour of disclosing the details to the committee.
However, 14 MPs from the ruling People's National Congress (PNC) and Jumhooree Party (JP) leader MP Qasim Ibrahim voted to keep the details confidential. Hithadhoo Medhu MP Ahmed Azaan, from the ruling party, abstained from the vote.
As PNC MPs voted to keep the details secret, opposition MPs alleged they were trying to deceive the people on how the funds were spent.
Presenting the supplementary budget in Parliament, Zameer said that MVR 37 billion was spent by the end of last month out of the MVR 49 billion approved for the current fiscal year. It is not clear how the funds were spent as the government has not released the financial data since June 20.
The opposition MDP believes that the budget for the current financial year has been completely exhausted.
