On Monday the Chamber of Deputies Plenary passed the draft law on the liquidation of the General State Budgets for 2021, the report on the execution of the public accounts during the first half of 2022 and the draft law on State budgets for 2023, including the budgets for the autonomous bodies and State public companies.
Before the plenary session, the Parliamentary Committee on the Economy, Trade, Finance and Budgets, which was analysing these draft laws, met to adopt the minutes and verdict resulting from its deliberations, conducted under the moderation of its President, Gaudencio Mohaba Mesu.
The minutes contain the recommendations that the deputies put to the Government to ensure greater control over non-oil revenue, the strengthening of the productive sectors, the improvement of the management of autonomous bodies and public companies to achieve the objectives for which they were created, and the promotion of small and medium-sized businesses and an improvement in the business climate to attract foreign investment.
The draft laws relating to the general State budgets were passed unanimously in the Chamber of Deputies by the two parliamentary groups, after hearing the assessments of their respective spokespersons.
The spokesperson for the Democratic Coalition, Salvador Nguema Mangue, once again insisted on the need to introduce economic diversification, through the strengthening of productive sectors, such as agriculture, livestock and fishing, in addition to tourism and the service sector, while advocating that the government periodically evaluate the functioning of all State autonomous bodies and public companies, in order to determine whether they are achieving their objectives.
The spokesman for the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea parliamentary group, Federico Abaga Ondo, for his part, highlighted the efforts made by the Government to clean up the national economy and increase allocations to the productive and social sectors, despite the economic crisis, the consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic and the contraction of oil activity.
The PDGE Group Spokesperson also highlighted the measures envisaged for next year’s budget to reduce customs duties on imports of some essentials produced outside the CEMAC, and the protection of products from the incipient national industrial fabric and, with regard to autonomous bodies and public companies, he encouraged the Executive to persist with measures to control these entities, so that the transfers they receive from the State continue to produce the expected benefits.
With the support of the two parliamentary groups, the draft laws relating to the general State budgets were admitted for the following parliamentary procedure, a second reading in the Senate, and the Deputy Minister for Finance, the Economy and Planning, Hermes Ela Mifumu, who led the Government delegation, thanked the deputies for their unanimous support.
Source: Official Web Page of the Government