Senate panel calls for including supplementary grant in money bill

The Senate Standing Committee on Finance in its meeting on Tuesday unanimously sent a constitutional amendment bill to the upper house of parliament, with direction that supplementary grant should be included in the money bill rather than getting it approved through a resolution.

The committee meeting, chaired by Senator Farooq H Naek, discussed the constitutional amendment proposed by Sherry Rehman regarding supplementary grants. Senator Rehman proposed change in the Article 84 of the Constitution to stop “misuse” of the supplementary grant.

During the discussion, the special finance secretary told the committee that the government had stopped supplementary grants. In the financial year 2018-19, there was only one supplementary grant of Rs240 million, while in the last financial year 2019-20, only Rs20 billion was released.

However, he added that now a supplementary grant would be released to deal with coronavirus pandemic. Senator Sherry Rehman said that the grant for coronavirus pandemic had not been approved by parliament.

In the meeting, Senator Musaddiq Malik said that every supplementary grant should come before parliament. Senator Mohsin Aziz said that in case of emergency it would not be not possible to get the parliamentary approval.

Finance Ministry officials said that the supplementary grant was now released with the approval of the cabinet. However, the committee chairman said that the approval of the grant was required from parliament.

Finance ministry officials said that the supplementary grant should be included in the money bill. The committee directed the finance ministry to submit explanatory document on the supplementary grant and sent the constitutional amendment to the upper house.