MOGADISHU, Somalia – The lawmakers of the two Houses of Parliament approved the 2023 Somalia budget following a series of debates in the past few days at Villa Hargeisa.
The meeting chaired by the Speaker of the Lower House Sheikh Aden Madobe was attended by the Deputy Speakers of the two Houses of the Somali Parliament on Monday morning.
Madobe said after the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd readings, 169 MPs from both houses voted unanimously, 1 MP rejected while two abstained, making the budget valid for 2023.
The Minister of Finance Bihi Iman Cige, thanked the two houses for their majority approval of the budget and said that a lot of effort will be devoted to the growth and development of the country’s economy.
Finally, Madobe, who closed the meeting, told the Ministry of Finance and the government in general that the next budget should be brought before the Assembly so that the MPs have enough time to go through their procedures.
Somalia will be eligible for full debt relief from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral lenders by the end of this year as reforms to boost revenue collection and fiscal transparency begin to bear fruit, the lender has said.
Somalia reached the decision point for IMF debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in March 2020, which saw its debt stock reduce to $3.7 billion from the $5.2 billion it had accumulated by December 2018.
