Finance

Finance

Some parliamentarians protest setting oil price at $45 p/b

10 November 2009 16:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Elbrus Seyfullayev â€“ APA. The parliament began discussion over the state budget bill for 2010, APA reports.

Lawmaker Jamil Hasanli said it was unacceptable to set oil price at $45 per barrel because it was very lower price. Hasanli touched other issues too. â€œThe budget deficit exceeds the last yearâ€™s figures for seven times. It is an issue exercising. 6 million AZN were allocated for film producing, but it is not enough even for magazine issuingâ€.

MP Rafael Jabrayilov said it was not correct to fund large cities from the budget. He said the large cities should have developed industry, which created resources for self-funding.

MP Nazim Mammadov proposed to solve the transport problems of the parliamentarians. He also focused attention on education problems proposing to solve it via reforms.

Lawmaker Zahid Oruj proposed to establish government commission for prevention of AH1N1 virus spread. He also said there was no need to publish budget reports as a booklet. â€œWe can receive this information on CD. There is no need to spend tens thousands manats for booklet publicationsâ€.

Lawmaker Vahid Ahmedov proposed to set oil price not at $45, but $55 per barrel. He also expressed concern over the budget deficit. â€œThere is more than one billion AZN deficit. Taxpayers have more than 4 billion AZN debts to the budget. It will equal to the budget amount in few years. We need to put an end to this and to create budget control mechanismâ€.

Speaker of the parliament Ogtay Asadov reacted to the Nazim Mammadovâ€™s proposal about the transport problems of the parliamentarians. â€œWe have best transport supplement in CIS. In Belarus, even vice speakers have no personal cars. We intend to retrench on budget, but you demand cars. The government provides the parliament with all assistancesâ€.

The discussions will be continued on November 11.