The Ministry of Finance (MoF) said the draft budget for the next five fiscal years has been prepared and will be submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval within the next week.

Ahmad Wali Haqmal, a spokesman for the ministry, said the entire budget is dependent on domestic revenue income and not on foreign aid.

Haqmal said he expected the Council of Ministers to approve the draft budget by the end of the current month and submit it to the relevant agencies for implementation.

Haqmal added: The draft budget is ready in the ministry and its work is almost done.

This is the first budget of the Afghan government in the last 20 years, which is not dependent on foreign aid and we have built it all on the basis of our domestic revenue. The Ministry of Finance is done with its work and after that it will go to the Council of Ministers for approval and after approval we will proceed according to our budget in the next financial year, said Haqmal.

Haqmal said that there is no problem in covering the operating budget which is funded by the generation of domestic revenue, but there are some problems with the development budget. He said limited, but important, development projects have been included in this budget.

Haqmal said that if domestic revenue rises in the first half of the year, the budget will be adjusted and more development projects will be included.

He added: We have no problem with the operating budget and the operating budget is made up from our domestic revenue, but we have also considered development projects for next year, which will be fewer than last year ...As our revenue increases, other development projects will also be included in it.

But economists say the budget is not just about meeting the costs of ministries, but also about implementing development projects across the country and providing services to the people.

In previous years, Afghanistan�s budget for each fiscal year was estimated at 4.5 billion afghanis, up to 40 percent of which was earmarked for development projects, at that time, the entire budget would have been based on foreign aid and the deficit would have been higher than the discretionary budget.