Bujumbura — Burundi's finance minister, Ms Clotilde Nizigama, has not succeeded in preparing the draft law governing the 2008 budget in time, though she promised to do so in November. The end of the year is drawing close, yet the draft law has not reached the parliament for analysis, amendment and approval. The project law has already been deliberated in a cabinet meeting.
Steering the project law through the parliament will not be easy for the finance minister. There has been a wind of change in the Parliament where the ruling party party, CNDD-FDD, is short of a majority. It is unlikely that it will be possible to force the approval of the budget through parliament. The ruling party has now taken recourse to boycotting activities in bid to diminish quorum, and this has already born fruit: members of parliament did not meet in plenary session today in order to establish a commission to monitor talks between the government and PALIPEHUTU-FNL since quorum was not reached.
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