With 3.7% increase in budget, PMIC gets Rs70 million

ISLAMABAD: The Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC) saw a moderate increase of 3.7% in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2018-19 as compared to the Rs67.47 million it received in the outgoing fiscal year, later revised to Rs67.48 million.

The budgetary allocation in the financial year 2016-17 was Rs64.90 million.

In the federal budget 2018-19, an amount of Rs49.28 million has been allocated under the head of ‘employees related expenses’ including Rs26.88 million for ‘pay,’ which includes Rs21.53 million as officers’ pay and Rs5.3 million as staff’s pay.



An amount of Rs22.39 million has been allocated under the head of allowances including Rs17.58 million as ‘regular allowances’ and Rs4.81 million as ‘other allowances’ excluding travel allowance, which has not been specified in the PMIC’s budget. Moreover, Rs0.2 million have been allocated under the head of ‘grants, subsidies and write off loans’ in the new federal budget 2018-19 for the PMIC



For long, question marks have been put on the PMIC’s transparency, impartiality and fairness due to its “politically-motivated” inquiries against the members of opposition parties in the past.

In addition, some government officials believe that in the presence of independent accountability and investigation bodies like the National Accountability Bureau, the Federal Ombudsman, the Federal Tax Ombudsman and the Banking Ombudsman, there is hardly any room for entities like the PMIC.

Unlike all these bodies, the PMIC is not independent and works under the direct administrative control of prime minister. PMIC chairman is appointed by PM who can remove him anytime.



Officially, the PMIC is tasked with monitoring the functioning of all federal government institutions for ensuring merit and transparency. The post of PMIC chairman remained vacant for several months after the retirement of Amir Muhammad Khan Marwat in November 2016. Later, the government quietly appointed Pervaiz Rathore, a former police officer, as PMIC chairman last year.