The People's Assembly refers the 2022 draft budget law to the Budget and Accounts Committee

Damascus-SANA

The People’s Assembly, in its thirteenth session of the fourth regular session of the third legislative session, held today under the chairmanship of Hamouda Sabbagh, Speaker of the Assembly, referred the ministerial financial statement on the draft law that includes the state’s general budget for 2022 to the Budget and Accounts Committee for study and preparation of the necessary report on it.

At the beginning of the session, Minister of Finance Dr. Kinan Yaghi read the ministerial financial statement on the draft budget law 2022, indicating that the project focused on “securing the requirements of the army and the armed forces, strengthening its steadfastness, continuing to take measures to improve citizens’ lives, restructuring support and delivering it to its beneficiaries, continuing to support local production and its development, and securing the requirements of the industrial sectors.” And the continuation of the interest rate support program to ensure that producers obtain financing, amend tax legislation, automate tax administration, and develop the banking and insurance sector.”

The Minister of Finance indicated that the project also focused on continuing to organize and manage the foreign exchange market, tighten control over it, enhance the electronic payment program, develop exports, enhance its competitiveness, encourage investment in the tourism sector, raise the quality of education, link it with the needs of the labor market, and achieve justice in access to health and treatment services and vaccinations.

Minister Yaghi indicated that the most important reasons for the increase in the deficit in the 2022 budget, estimated at 4118 billion Syrian pounds, are “the change in the estimation of the exchange rate of the Syrian pound against the dollar in the state’s general budget, which led to an increase in public expenditures and the difficulty of reducing them, the deficit of food supplies as a result of selling at the administrative price and an increase in Salaries and wages in decrees 19 and 20 of the current year with periodic upgrades and modest revenues for independent accounting units.

For their part, a number of council members, during the discussion of the financial statement on the draft law, described the budget as “inflationary,” calling for a move away from increasing indirect tax rates and seeking to implement a more just tax policy whose burdens would be borne by the most benefiting from wealth and the reduction of taxes on low-income people.

He called on the members to revive agricultural production and secure its requirements to ensure food security, develop the work of public banks, enhance the economic and social capacity that supports steadfastness, activate the tools of positive intervention in the Ministry of Internal Trade, and be strict in combating the corrupt, monopolists and manipulators of the citizen’s power, demanding a quick increase in salaries and wages by at least 50 percent. To bridge the gap between income and prices.

A number of members believed that financing the deficit with treasury bonds from the Central Bank of Syria and the general reserve leads to an increase in inflation rates, calling for a review of fiscal policy and securing real revenues for the public treasury from public sector economic institutions, increasing small and medium enterprises and supporting them with financing at reduced interest rates, and providing an investment environment conducive to investments. Local and foreign, and linking salaries and wages to the exchange rate.

In his response to the council members’ interventions, the Minister of Finance confirmed that there is a permanent interest and study by the ministry to secure additional resources to increase salaries and wages, and it is fully prepared and ready to increase according to the available capabilities if the necessary revenues are available, indicating that there are ambitious projects and programs that are being worked on to enhance revenues.

Minister Yaghi clarified that there is a complete program to restructure the subsidy, which will be announced early next year, but the subsidy will not be in cash, and the subsidy will not be canceled for electricity, bread, food supplies, fuel, etc., but rather to move away from segments that do not deserve support, such as large taxpayers, and increase support for the most vulnerable segment of society. And improving salaries and wages, as a community database is prepared within specific criteria for the implementation of this program.

The session, which was attended by Minister of State for People's Assembly Affairs Abdullah Abdullah, was adjourned to 12 noon tomorrow, Tuesday.

Waseem Al-Adawi and Louay Houssam