QUESTION OF VOTING ON THE CONFIDENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF KAZAKHSTAN IS DECLINED

/Almaty office of REUTERS, Sep.28, 99/ - Constitutional Council of Kazakhstan regarded the way a matter on the government's confidence was put to the question as illegal, since the project of the budget-2000 has not been declined by the parliament and the deputies could not make a decision on either one of the proposals, which has been put to the question last Saturday, said Yuri Kim, the chairman of the Constitutional Council. "No decision has been made regarding the project of the budget. You (the deputies and the authorities) should have searched for the third kind of proposal or discuss the matter before the decision was made. Therefore, the vote on the confidence was not put correctly by the government", he said today in the morning at the joint session of the Senate and the Majilis of the Parliament. The prime-minister of Kazakhstan Nurlan Balgimbaev said to deputies the government was agree to review the social issues in the budget-2000 taking into account all remarks made by the deputies and Otan (Motherland) party, and had offered to create a conciliatory commission. He offered to meet at the plenary session on October 4th or 8th. "We are not submitting a new budget, we are including the social part taking into account your remarks, and only the social part" said the prime-minister to the deputies. He also added the government agreed to revoke the draft laws with amendments to laws regarding the pension support and social benefits. "We ask you to adopt the budget in the first reading to fix the macroeconomic indicators - expenses, revenues and deficit of the republican budget" asked Balgimbaev. The deficit of the budget-2000 was offered by the government at 3.0 percent of GDP compared with 3.6 percent this year. The senators Guljan Karagusova and Zinaida Fedotova asserted the project of the budget had not to be reviewed even in the first reading, until the block of social laws, accompanying the budget-2000, was adopted. Presently, a break was announced, and the deputies have not decided yet whether to review the budget-2000 in the first reading.