Last week, on 21 October, the Azerbaijani parliament adopted the draft law on 2006 pubic budget after two week- hot discussions. MPs succeeded to inject some changes in the public budget income and expenses.
The forecast public budget was decreased by 2m manats вЂ" to 3,406,315,3bn manats. It occurred at the expense of cut in the amount of the dividends to come next year from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies. The public budget expenses were increased 28m manats вЂ" to 3,594,315,3bn manats, and respectively the deficit was increased 30m manats to 188m manats, or 1.3% of the Gross Domestic Product. It will be covered at the expense of the issue of short-term T-bills.
Considering the public budget expenses and incomes, which were raised, the expenses �received’ additional 10m �new’ manats for indexation of the community deposits left from the former Soviet Union. Then follows 9.9m manats added for issue of the T-bills, allocated for indemnifying the centralized credit of the NBA for covering the public budget deficit in 1992-1996. The most interesting were 250,000 manats allotted for the maintenance of the President’s Administration. The Minister of Finances clarified that the additional funds were necessary for reception of foreign guests.
The same time the parliament adopted 13 bills, including the draft laws on �Targeted Social Aid’, directed at injecting essential changes in the rules on calculation of the benefits and delivery of social assistance to low-income population, the 2006 budget of the State Fund of Social Security (SFSS), with changes into the incomes and expenses.
So, the combined budget of Azerbaijan increases year by year, while the 2006 public budget testified for unseen record in the history of Azerbaijan, when the public budget incomes will increase 70%. The question is whether the government will beat the record of effective use of the expenses is still questionable.