OGE 2023 was approved by the plenary with 124 votes in favour, namely from the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the Social Renovation Party (PRS), the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the Humanist Party of Angola (PHA), 86 votes against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and no abstentions.
The government proposal, which estimates revenues and sets expenditures of 20.1 billion kwanzas, passed the parliamentary scrutiny as a whole during the fourth extraordinary plenary meeting of the first legislative session of the V Legislature of the National Assembly.
For the MPLA, the vote in favor of the first Budget after the general elections of August 2022 arises from the fact that the executive, supported by itself, presents "solutions" to "provide answers to the political meaning of the loss of the qualified majority".
"That's why this OGE increases the budget for health, for education, reinforces the budget for combating poverty. That's why this OGE will increase the value of the Kwenda Program (monetary transfer program for the most vulnerable populations) , not only increasing the value of the benefit, but also expanding the number of beneficiaries", justified Virgílio de Fontes Pereira, president of the MPLA parliamentary group.
The MPLA and its President, João Lourenço, "are aware that Angolans face enormous challenges in employment, in secondary and tertiary roads, in the fight against malnutrition and drought in certain locations", he admitted.
"We are aware of the concerns of the people and we assume our political responsibility in parliament and in the executive in solving the problems of the people", stressed the parliamentary leader in his explanation of vote.
UNITA, which again rejected an OGE, justified its vote against, in its declaration of vote presented by deputy Albertina Ngolo, considering that some assumed macroeconomic assumptions, fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies of the Budget "will not be friendly to businessmen and nor the families".
"Unfortunately, Angolan families will continue to face a high level of cost of living, thousands of citizens will continue to live on the poverty line, the unemployment rate today situated at 30 percent of the active population runs serious risks of getting worse", he said.
Companies "will continue to face serious difficulties in leveraging their businesses, they will pay more taxes within the production chain, without forgetting the constraints resulting from the delay in the payment of debt by the State to these economic agents", he stressed.
The mixed parliamentary group composed of the PRS and FNLA parties approved the 2023 OGE proposal considering that their contributions, during the discussions of the specific document, were partially accepted in the joint opinion report.
In the opinion of PRS deputy Benedito Daniel, who presented the explanation of vote, he referred that his contributions to the Budget, however interesting they may be, "cannot substantially change the line of its conception or the spirit of its elaboration".
For her part, the deputy and president of the PHA, Florbela Malaquias, who voted in favor of the OGE 2023, said that the document is, above all, "an instrument for building and strengthening democracy, a humanization device".
"We voted in favor to respond to the urgency of our time and start working on the execution of the OGE, others to control this execution to the millimeter, because it is our responsibility", argued the leader of the "humanists".
The OGE 2023, approved this Monday as a whole, estimates revenues and sets expenditures of 20.1 billion kwanzas, of which 13.4 billion kwanzas are tax revenue and 6.6 billion kwanzas are financial revenue.
Angola's biggest macroeconomic management instrument was prepared at the weighted average price of a barrel of oil of US$75.
This major macroeconomic management instrument in the country, according to the Minister of State for Economic Coordination, Manuel Nunes Júnior, will fundamentally fulfill two objectives, namely the "continuation of the country's economic growth and the continuation of prudent budgetary management".
