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Afghan parliament disqualifies 3 ministers

Xinhua, November 12, 2016 Adjust font size:

Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga, the Lower House of parliament, has disqualified three government ministers over failure in spending their development budgets, parliament Speaker Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi announced on Saturday.

The dismissed officials included Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, Labor and Social Affairs Minister Nasren Oryakhel and Public Works Minister Mahmood Baligh.

The legislators of 249-seat Wolesi Jirga last week announced that they would summon ministers from Saturday, Nov. 12 over their failure to spend development budgets and the officials should explain to lawmakers satisfactory reasons for not spending their budgets.

In Saturday's voting, Rabbani received 140 votes to be dismissed against 58 votes of confidence while Baligh was disqualified after receiving 144 votes against and 56 votes in favor.

Out of available lawmakers in Saturday's session, 144 voted against Oryakhel, one of the four women ministers of the cabinet, and 56 voted in favor of her.

The Afghan government has 25 ministries and 13 more ministers are expected to be summoned in coming days over the same issue.

Ibrahimi called on President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to introduce three nominees to the Wolesi Jirga to receive the vote of confidence at an early time for the above ministries. Endit