Self-exiled former president Mohamed Nasheed on Wednesday labelled the state budget for next as 'illegal' insisting that it was passed by a parliament without the constitutionally mandated number of lawmakers present.
Parliament earlier Wednesday with just 39 government aligned lawmakers passed the MVR27.8 million state budget for next year as the opposition boycotted the vote.
Lawmakers from the now united opposition had boycotted the parliament sitting and have instead sought the Supreme Court's intervention to stop the vote expected to take place in a few hours on Wednesday.
The case cited Article 87 (b) of the constitution which states that parliament voting on any matter requiring compliance by citizens shall only be undertaken when more than half of the total membership of the parliament are present at the sitting at which the matter is voted upon.
Nasheed took to Twitter to highlight the same point going onto say that any taxpayers money spent by all government entities next year would be illegal.
The government which had enjoyed overwhelming majority in parliament has in the past few months lost several government aligned lawmakers to the now united opposition. In a desperate bid to maintain its grip on parliament, the government had managed to get the Supreme Court to issue a anti-defection ruling which had disqualified several rebel lawmakers from parliament.
The government controlled parliamentary budget review committee had on Tuesday signed off on the MVR27.9 billion after the committee's opposition lawmakers walked out in protest.
The opposition has continuously raised concerns over mounting debt and questionable revenue measures included in the budget for next year.
Meanwhile, Maldives central bank on Monday fired a stark warning over the continuous financing of mega projects on foreign loans which it said could severely drain national reserve.
Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) in its expert opinion of the proposed MVR28 billion state budget for next year to the parliamentary budget review committee said the country's continued dependency on foreign financial markets remains a major concern.
The foreign loans secured to finance mega development projects continues to be a burden on the country's GDP, MMA said.
The central bank estimated the country's foreign debt to balloon to USD1 billion by the end of next year which would severely drain the national reserve. MMA also said the budget deficit estimated to be MVR3.4 billion in 2016 had actually risen MVR67 billion. If immediate measures are not taken to find out the reasons behind the stark difference, the forecast budget deficit in the next few years could multiply, it said.
According to the MMA, the government would find it extremely difficult to sustain its current policy to cover the budget deficit through the sale of treasury bills and bonds to commercial and private banks next year as there is a MVR2.3 billion slide in current investment numbers.
