Excess expenses: Govt spends Rs176m on publicity, press clubs

Supplementary spending requests include money spent on Presidency, prime minister’s houses.

ISLAMABAD:

Despite announcing an austerity campaign, the federal government spent Rs44 million on publicity campaigns during the outgoing fiscal year without Parliament’s approval, in addition to over 22 million on renovating the Presidency and the prime minister’s residences in Lahore and Multan and nearly Rs110 million in payments to press clubs and other journalist organisations.

The revelations were made in the supplementary spending bill submitted by the finance ministry from the outgoing fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, which reveals significant cost overruns by the federal government. The supplementary authorisations are a request made by the finance ministry to approve expenses that have already occurred but had not been authorised by Parliament in the initial budget bill for 2011.

Other items listed on the spending bill include Rs13 million for the purchase of seven cars in the prime minister’s motorcade, and Rs109.5 million in grants to various press clubs around the country as well as the All Pakistan Newspapers’ Society.

While the amount comes to less than 0.2% of the total budget deficit of Rs1,122 billion, the unauthorised payments for non-essential items call the scale and scope of the government’s austerity drive into question.

Within the publicity spending, the government spent nearly Rs12 million on a special publicity campaign promoting the 18th Amendment to the constitution, portrayed in the information ministry campaign as a ‘restoration of the 1973 constitution.’

The government is also requesting post hoc authorisation for Rs20 million spent on the “special publicity fund”, used in the past to make payments to journalists and media houses in order to promote the government’s agenda in the press.

The government also asked for Rs16.8 million for the maintenance of the Presidency, including Rs1 million on the Presidency’s gardens alone. About 5.6 million was spent on renovations at the prime minister’s residences in Lahore and Multan.

Much of the excess spending also went towards the press, with at least Rs70 million being granted to the Multan Press Club, in Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s hometown. The National Press Club in Islamabad was granted Rs10 million and the All Pakistan Newspapers Society office in Karachi was granted Rs25 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2011.