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Afghan parliament disqualifies 2 more ministers

Xinhua, November 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of parliament disqualified two more cabinet ministers Sunday over failure in spending their development budgets, the Lower House speaker said.

The move brought the number of disqualified ministers to five since Saturday, according to the speaker Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi.

The legislators of 249-seat Wolesi Jirga last week announced to summon and seek explanation from ministers from Nov. 12 over their failure in spending development budgets.

Afghan Minister of Transportation and Civil Aviation Mohammadullah Batash by securing 51 votes in favor and 142 votes against was disqualified Sunday. Similarly, Minister of Education Asadullah Hanif Balkhi lost his post after receiving 131 votes against and 68 votes in favor.

However, Finance Minister Eklil Hakimi narrowly survived the no trust move and remained in his position. Afghan government has 25 ministries and 10 more ministers, who will be summoned in coming days to the Lower House of parliament over failure of spending development budget.

Meantime, Ibrahimi called upon President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to introduce new faces for approval of Lower House of parliament to replace the disqualified ministers.

In similar session on Saturday, the lawmakers dismissed three ministers, including Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, over failure in spending the ministry's development budget. Enditem