Africa-Press – Angola. The commissions of the National Assembly (AN) for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Economy and Finance and for State Administration and Local Government recommended that the Executive pay special attention to the risk of over-indebtedness, due to the rise in interest rates in the international financial market .
When reading the draft resolution, which approves the parliamentarians’ recommendations to the General State Budget (OGE), deputy Joaquim Frederico de Almeida (from the First Committee) justified the warning to the Executive with the fact that the Debt Plan, in fiscal year 2023, is estimated at 33 percent, with prospects for further increases.
“It is imperative to continue the downward trajectory of the public debt to levels close to 605 of GDP”, said the deputy, during the presentation of the Joint Opinion Report of the commissions, which brings together the suggestions and recommendations of the deputies of the National Assembly and of the political parties with parliamentary seat. .
As far as the Economy, Planning and Finance sector is concerned, the National Assembly commissions, in reference, recommend that a report be included in the OGE Proposal for the next financial years with detailed information on each project, showing the total value, source financing, level of physical and financial execution, as well as the residual and incidence value.
The objective, he said, is to present an inventory of registered projects, in order to resize the perspectives of budget appropriations, having described, still in the same vein, that the deputies advise for the next budgets, within the scope of the financial deconcentration project, that they be clarified and presented the source of local tax revenues.
VAT exemption and reduction
Likewise, he referred to the suggestion of the deputies that swift measures be adopted so that the General Tax Administration (AGT) complies with the stipulated deadline for the refund of VAT and studies the possibility of exemption or reduction of the VAT Rate, from 7 to 5 per cent, for the entire productive sector.
The parliamentarians also defend, in the Joint Opinion Report, the revision of the invoicing limit from 10 million kwanzas to 25 million, within the framework of the diploma that regulates the application of the simplified invoicing regime for micro, small and medium-sized companies, presenting as justification the current context of the economy, with a view to complying with the Law on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, and replicating the process to the Industrial Tax and Labor Income Tax of Group C.
The review of the legal framework on the Self-Invoicing Legal Regime, taking into account Presidential Decree No. last year. They also suggest greater rigor in the contracting and certification of public debt, as well as payments and, additionally, the process of regularizing the payment of debts, with priority given to the arrears of small and medium-sized companies.
Health and Education sectors must avoid strikes
The deputies of the National Assembly recommend that the sectors of Education and Health, beneficiaries of the largest slice of the “cake” of the present OGE, with 25.1 and 24 percent, respectively, to improve the dialogue with the unions of the classes, in order to avoid the constant strike scenarios.
The committees for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Economy and Finance and State Administration and Local Government refer, in the Joint Opinion Report presented by the parliamentarian Joaquim Frederico de Almeida, that, in the Health chapter, the dialogue with the Unions of Nurses and of Doctors and the Order of Nurses and Doctors, “in order to avoid the constant strikes of professionals in the sector”.
He also mentioned, in relation to Health, that operating funds should be allocated to the Sol Hemodialysis Centre, advocating that it be converted into a Budget Unit, in view of the challenges of contributing to the reversal of medical boards abroad.
Given the increase in the number of cancer cases in the country, with the particularity that the majority converge on the province of Luanda for treatment, the National Assembly commissions also suggest increasing funds for the National Institute for Fighting Cancer Cancer, based on sector budget allocation. With regard to Education, the parliamentarians underline the imperative need for the sector to consider the proposals in the claims list of the trade union bodies SINPROF and SINPTENU, in order to also avoid “the constant strikes of professionals”.
“That the sector reassess the situation of the public admission competition, held in 2021, whose participants had positive results, with particular emphasis on those who had signed contracts and that, in the next Budgets, financial conditions be created to equip schools with libraries, reading rooms and small laboratories”, noted deputy Joaquim Frederico de Almeida.
Restructuring of the table and salary scale
The implementation, in the next fiscal year, of mechanisms that allow the evaluation and restructuring of the civil service salary table and scale is defended by the deputies of the commissions for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Economy and Finance and of the Administration of the State and Local Government, such as the solution to avoid huge pay disparities and pressure from strikes and trade unionists.
The deputies also suggest that the Public Administration, Work and Social Security sector adopt a financing model for employment and professional training policies, as well as youth entrepreneurship projects, with subsidized interest rates, to mitigate the levels of unemployment that the country has recorded in recent years.
In the chapter on Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, the parliamentary committees recommend the provision of funds, using the sector’s current budget, for public tenders for teachers, researchers and staff of the general regime.
The 2023 OGE has US$75 as a reference price for a barrel of oil and an average production of 1.18 million barrels.
For More News And Analysis About Angola Follow Africa-Press
