The budget for 2024 and the supplementary budget for the current year have been placed on the agenda for tomorrow's parliament session.

This has been listed on the agenda for Tuesday's session as a proposal from the Speaker's table, apart from which nothing else has been listed for tomorrow's session.

According to the law, the budget for the next financial year has to be presented by October every year.

The budget presented tomorrow will be the state's biggest ever. Parliament will take up the issue of the budget and debate the issues involved in it. Parliament will have to take a decision on the budget by the end of November.

According to the Finance Ministry's fiscal strategy report, the total budget estimate for the next fiscal year is MVR 50.6 billion based on the number of measures that can be saved from baseline expenditure and cost reduction measures, as well as the new projects and programmes announced in the budget.This is 5.3 percent more than the budget for 2023, the report said, adding that the state budget for the current fiscal year was MVR 42.8 billion.

On October 18, the government presented a supplementary budget to parliament seeking permission to spend an additional MVR 6.5 billion to meet the budgetary expenses approved for the current fiscal year.

However, since the budget did not meet the conditions mentioned in the Finance Act, it was sent back for re-submission after completion.