Parliament passes 2017 Supplementary Appropriation Bill 2018

By Gary Hatigeva

PARLIAMENT has on Monday, blessed the expenditure records of the government, giving an ok to the records of the money that were used under the 2017 Supplementary Appropriation.

Presented as the 2017 Supplementary Appropriation Bill 2018, it went through all procedures of the House and was thoroughly scrutinised by the Committee of the Whole House on the usage of funds under two Supplementary Appropriation Bills (SAB) that were brought to parliament by the same government, but under two Prime Ministers and two finance heads, only with a few adjustments in policies.

First, Parliament appropriated a supplementary appropriation of $435,409,870 to be applicable for the service of the year ending 2017.

Later last year, another SA Bill was brought in, which was also approved, seeking an additional $43,906,376 under the now Solomon Islands Democratic Coalition for Change Government (SIDCCG), to the service of the year ending December 31, 2017.

The first 2017 SAB consisted of the 2017 recurrent and development contingency warrants that totalled up to $6,920,000 and recurrent and development advance warrants of up to $20,886,945, with a total variation of $127,345,938.

As for the second SAB, it consisted of the recurrent and development contingency warrants that totalled up to $4,841,838 and recurrent and development advance warrants of up to $39,064,538.

These monies were used in the year ending December 31, 2017.

Under the first SAB, the Bill revealed that for Development Contingency warrants, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development had asked and was issued a total of $200,000,000 while the Ministry of Infrastructure Development was issued a total of $106,000,000, most of which went towards their supplementary expenditures.

Also under the first SAB, a total of six ministries were issued with Contingency Warrants, and two ministries, namely the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Labour and Immigration.

Meanwhile, under the second SAB, a total of seven ministries were issued with recurrent Advance Warrants and three Ministries namely, the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Meteorology, the National Judiciary and the National Parliament used a total of over $4.8 million for Development advance warrants.

Following the passage of the 2017 Supplementary Appropriation Act 2018, Parliament was adjourned to this morning.

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