National Assembly |28 November 2023
Budget allocations of two ministries and their related entities approved
The National Assembly has entered the last week of discussion on the 2024 budget appropriations. Yesterday it approved the budget of two ministries namely the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family and that of Finance, National Planning and Trade, and budgets of agencies under their auspices.
The first before the House was Minister Marie-Celine Zialor presenting the sum of R46.8 million – R16.4 million for the department of youth and sports and R30.3 million for the Family department. The minister explained that both departments have seen an increase from their revised 2023 budget with the former getting an additional R2.11 million for next year and the latter R5.5 million.
The 17 MNAs of the ruling Linyon Demokratik Seselwa party in the House approved the sum, while the 9 United Seychelles MNAs abstained.
However, the whole House unanimously approved the sum of R322.4 million allocated to the Home Care Agency.
A majority also voted for the sum of R15.1 million proposed for the National Council for Children, with only one member abstaining. The vote was taken without debate.
For his part, Minister Naadir Hassan from the Ministry of Finance, National Planning and Trade justified the appropriation of R232.4 million, which he said was an increase of R76.2 million compared to the revised 2023 budget.
The finance department is getting a sum of R206.02 million, which is an increase of R97.1 million or representing 89 percent, while the National Planning will be functioning with R7.6 million – a R1.3 million increase. The Trade department has a sum of R18.7 million, which Mr Hassan said was a reduction of R22.3 million mainly due to the 11th European Development Fund in grant for the Trade department.
The National Assembly also approved the appropriations of the entities under the auspices of the ministry, namely the National Tender Board for a sum of R4.2 million and the Public Enterprise Monitoring Commission with a budget of R10.7 million.
Today they will be debating the appropriations of the Ministry of Lands & Housing, and two related entities namely the Planning Authority and the Seychelles Infrastructure Agency.
Patsy Canaya