Lawmakers on Wednesday rejected for the second time the national budget for 1392 (Mar 2013-Mar 2014), citing disagreement over the allocation of funds.
"The 196 billion Afs (US$3.82 bn) normal budget and 157.7 billion Afs (US$3.07 bn) development budget is rejected by the lawmakers as there are more red cards than greens," Speaker of the House Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi said following the vote from the lawmakers.
Some MPs opposed the $70 million slated for Kabul Bank saying that given it is being sold it does not make sense to allocate more funds to it.
"As you all know, Kabul Bank is on sale right now. If we approve $70m for Kabul Bank it will amount to treason and the borrowers will not pay their debts," Kabul MP Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi said.
Several other MPs urged that more money should be allocated to the second- and third-level provinces which have seen less development in the past decade.
"The prepared budget is unbalanced and the less developed provinces are not being given equal consideration," Zabul MP Hamidullah Tokhi said.
Other MPs urged for provinces with the greater security threats to have sufficient budgets to fight the insurgency.
"We should allocate sufficient budgets for the provinces with the higher level of threat," Kabul MP Shukria Barekzai said.