During the Parliament’s Finance Committee meeting, Minister said that the budget deficit would be close to MVR6 billion by the end of the year. The estimated budget deficit had been MVR3.08 billion. Minister added that the total State expenditure would be close to MVR26 billion by the end of the year. “But this figure might be more or even less,” Jihad said. As reasons for the increased budget deficit, Minister explained the decrease in revenue, the loans not received to plug the budget and the payable bills carried forward from last year. On that note, Minister revealed that unpaid bills worth MVR2 billion had been carried forward this year, while MVR800 million had been paid out from this year’s budget. Jihad further said that there were several issues with the present budget structure and added that next year’s budget will be proposed in a different manner. The total expenditure of the budget is MVR14.6 billion while the expected revenue is 11.5 billion. So far this year the State expenses amount to MVR9 billion when the revenue received is MVR7 billion, Jihad said.