BUDGET SPEECH POSTPONED

MBABANE – The 2024/2025 National Budget Speech has been postponed at the 11th hour.

This has not happened in recent years. It was supposed to take place today at 10am, in the House of Assembly.
The Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, was supposed to table the 2024/2025 National Budget. Yesterday afternoon, Clerk to Parliament Benedict Xaba announced that the national budget would no longer be tabled.

Consultations

“Following consultations with the Speaker, may I take this opportunity to notify Members of Parliament (MPs) that the 2024/2025 National Budget Speech that was supposed to be delivered by the minister of Finance tomorrow, on February 23, 2024, has been postponed to next week Monday, February 26, 2024 starting at 10am,” he said.
Xaba said, despite the postponement, MPs would still continue with the sitting.

When the clerk was engaged on what prompted the postponement of the crucial event in the calendar, Xaba said it was due to technical issues that were beyond their control.  The clerk was asked to provide reasons behind the postponement and whether those issues would not see the budget speech being postponed again.

He said: “This postponement was due to some technical issues. However, the issue will be resolved by tomorrow, I can assure the nation that the budget will be presented on Monday. We thank the nation for understanding.” He, however, did not point out the nature of the technical problems. Some MPs who were contacted said they were hoping that the Speaker would address them on why the budget speech was postponed as they did not want to speculate.

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