House approves 1994 E.C. budget, defers civil service reform bill 

Addis Ababa July 5, (ENA)--- The House of Peoples' Representatives in its 36th regular session here on Thursday approved the 1994 E.C. budget and deferred for next September the bill  providing  for establishment of  the civil service reform program.

 According to the approved bill, 15 Billion Birr is allocated for the budget year, of which the federal government's recurrent and capital budget constitute 7.2 billion and 3 billion Birr respectively. 

 It said 4.7 billion Birr of the total budget will be given to regional states in subsidy.  

 Some 331 projects, 277 of which outstanding, were expected to be executed with the capital budget.

 The bill stipulates that the stated amount of money is envisaged to be secured from the federal government's treasury as well as from grants and loans of the counterparts fund.  

The educational, roads, transport and the agricultural sub-sectors have taken the lion share's of the capital budget, as the government has attached due importance to the human resources development and construction of infrastructures. 

The budget allocated for the defense has significantly been reduced while the subsidy for the regional states witnessed a marked rise when compared to the last few years' budget allocation.

 Some 9.7 Billion is expected to be collected from tax and non-tax incomes, exceeding the current year's tax collection performance by 12.4 percent. 

The house also postponed for next September the endorsement of the bill providing for the establishment of the civil service reform program, saying that the bill has failed to incorporate the details of payments and salary scales along with the human resources administrative reform sub-program.  

 The house has also approved the bill enabling to establish the export trade duty incentive scheme. 

According to the bill, the establishment of the export trade duty scheme was believed to be instrumental in improving the foreign currency reserve of the country.

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