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The main opposition party, Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) has said that the budget of 2010 submitted by the government is the most insufficient one submitted to the People’s Majlis to date.

Speaking at a press conference held yesterday, DRP’s special envoy Ibrahim Shareef said that because of the proposed budget, prices of goods in Maldives will be further hiked. He also said that a black market of money will also be created because of this budget, which will further worsen the country’s economy.

Shareef said that even though the MDP ruled government submitted a budget for the year 2009, the government did not implement it. He added that the budget of 2010 proves that government’s word and action is not the same. He further noted that the recurrent spending of the government was increasing year by year.

DRP had termed budget of 2010 as a deficit budget as the proposed budget has a deficit of Mrf 4.7 billion.

DRP had issued a press release on Sunday criticizing the government’s budget for next year. DRP’s press release said that the budget proposed by the government was smaller than this year and does not meet public’s developmental hopes and aspirations. It also said that they doubted if the government had put serious thought into their estimation in the budget that the productivity of the country would increase year by year.

DRP further said that they doubted on how much the government would achieve in its estimated income as some of the government’s revenue or income depends on tax that will be taken in the future after some legislation are passed in the Majlis in regard to those taxes.

DRP also noted that profits for the year 2010 from state owned companies will be reduced by Mrf 333 compared to this year. DRP attributed this to government’s policy of selling off its assets. Stating examples, DRP said that the government, this year, sold 7% of government’s share in Dhiraagu to USD 40 million.

Further slicing the budget, DRP pointed out that while the government’s proposed budget has a deficit of 40%, the budget does not have much developmental projects and since the government expenses had gone extremely high, the repeated claims by the government to cut back on government’s expense was highly questionable.

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