Bahrain Mirror: Bahraini local newspaper al-Wasat issued a report on government employees' complaints that their promotions have been frozen for four two now, under the pretext that the 2017 and 2018 state budget had not yet been approved. The employees expressed their concern regarding the government's silence over not referring the new general budget to the members of parliament for discussion". This comes although the constitutional deadline for referring the budget was 4 months ago. Moreover, the employees complained about the parliamentary apathy in demanding the referral of the budget plan to them.

On this level, the employees noted, "We know that there is a government notice to stop any actions that would cause new financial commitments for new programs, needs, and projects, and to stop measures related to all promotions of manpower (except retirement promotions)." They also noted that there is a demand to stop all incentive, bonuses, and new part-time employment, whether under the repeated expenditure budget or projects' expenditures, whose implementations should have started in January 2017, when the law adopting the 2017 and 2018 state budget should have been issued.

"We understand this governmental measure in light of the financial situation in the country, yet delaying the referral of budget from its schedule by 4 months, makes us believe that the government is not serious in resolving the budget, and that it is stalling in order to maintain the status quo. This means that our promotions will remain frozen until further notice", they went on to say.

The estimated size of budget deficit is about two billion Bahraini Dinars for each fiscal year; i.e. 4 billion Bahraini Dinars in 2 fiscal years.

Arabic Version