The National Assembly this afternoon passed the $383.1B Budget for 2021 in the absence of the APNU/AFC Opposition Members of Parliament.
As Speaker Manzoor Nadir attempted to continue with what was supposed to be Day Three of the Consideration of the Budget Estimates for the various government Ministries, the proceeding was disrupted by the APNU/AFC parliamentarians.
The Opposition MPs were persistently banging on their desks, forcing the Speaker to suspend several of them for the rest of today’s session.
However, efforts to move ahead with the consideration of the estimates were drowned out by loud uproar from Opposition’s side, which continued for nearly thirty minutes before Opposition MPs walked out of the Dome of the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, where the parliamentary sitting is being held.
This forced Speaker Nadir to invoke Standing Order 75 (3) which gives him the power to consolidate the current and capital expenditures for the various programmes and sub-heads under each Ministry, thus allowing the Committee of Supply to rapidly go through the entire budget for each agency without interruptions.
Following a short adjournment, the Assembly approved the 2021 National Budget this afternoon.
The PPP/C government presented the $383.1B 2021 Budget, themed “A Path to Recovery, Economic Dynamism and Resilience” on February 12, 2021 – the regime’s second budget in six months and first full-year budget.
This was followed by a week-long fiery debate by MPs from both sides of the House and the commencement of the Consideration of the Budget estimates on Tuesday, which was initially slated to run for five days.
