PHOTO: FILE
This way, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has now backtracked from its earlier decision of presenting the fiscal budget for the financial year 2018-19.
The finance department, which had postponed preparations for a budget, too has yet to resume work on preparing the budget documents and related activities, sources said, adding that ever since K-P Chief Minister Pervez Khattak first announced that they will not be presenting a budget, staff in the finance department has not resumed their late sittings.
“The finance department, although not told in writing about the cancellation of the budget, but was communicated verbally after which we slowed the pace of preparing the budget,” said an official of the finance department who did not wish to be named.
Another senior official, who did not wish to be quoted, confirmed that the government will not be presenting the budget.
Separately, another senior official said, “it is a government known for its U-turns. We cannot say when will they make another U-turn and decide to present the budget, but for the time being there is no budget.”
The official, however, said that the finance department had completed work on the expenditure budget. However, some other components such as the budget speech and taxes, which are finalised by the cabinet, have yet to be prepared.
This would be the third time in a month that the K-P government has retracted from its earlier stance on the budget.
The series of U-turns on the budget started when PTI Chairman Imran Khan announced that the K-P government will not be presenting the budget for the upcoming year.
It was backed by a statement from Khattak on April 15 stating that the government felt that presenting a budget was unconstitutional and that this right belongs to the next government.
But on April 24, the government announced that it will be presenting the budget and called for a special budget session of the provincial assembly.
K-P Chief Minister House Spokesperson Shaukat Yousafzai issued a statement announcing that the government would be presenting the budget on May 14.
The statement though, only confused officials of the finance and planning departments.
When contacted, Youafzai confirmed that the government was not presenting the budget since they do not have the support of the opposition members.
“We decided to present the budget since the opposition was insisting on it, but if they are now not supporting the move, then we would not present [the budget],” he said, adding that the government was instead mulling an administrative budget for four months, rather for the entire fiscal year.
“We were not going to present the developmental budget when we had said that ‘we are presenting the budget’,” he said, adding that it does not take much time to prepare the administrative budget.
The development budget, however, was the right of the next government, Yousafzai said.
The PTI lost its majority in the assembly after Imran conducted a news conference earlier in April accusing around 18 provincial lawmakers of selling their votes in the Senate elections. As a result, the party was left with a strength of just 40 lawmakers in the assembly. Its ally, the Jamat-e-Islami (JI) only has seven lawmakers in the assembly and had announced to quit the government this week.
This leaves the PTI woefully short of the 63 votes it would require to pass the budget in the house of 122 members.
And now, with the opposition pulling its support for a budget, it is unlikely that the budget would be presented.
The assembly session is expected to take place on Thursday.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 1st, 2018.
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