Books: Hussam El Din Rady

The Partners for Transparency Foundation (PFT) criticized the approval of the state budget for the fifth time in a row after the January 2011 revolution in the absence of the elected parliament. With the exception of the fiscal year 2012/2013, in which the parliament participated partly in approving its general budget, all other budgets, including the budget The next fiscal year 2015/2016 was approved without presenting to the elected body that is constitutionally mandated to approve the budget.

She confirmed in a statement that the steps taken by the Ministry of Finance before preparing the budget, specifically issuing a guide to the citizen’s budget, and issuing a preliminary statement for the budget explaining the general framework within which the budget is prepared, are good steps to be counted for, but it reserves not enough time to discuss the budget in ways Mass media before it is approved by the Council of Ministers and submitted to the President of the Republic.

The Foundation called on the Ministry of Finance to issue a simplified guide for the state budget for the fiscal year 2015/2016, which includes specific numbers related to revenues and expected spending items, in order to achieve the required transparency principle, and to enable citizens to hold government authorities accountable during the next fiscal year.

It is worth noting that the government approved the state’s general budget for the fiscal year 2015/2016 at the end of last week in preparation for submitting it to the President of the Republic for approval.