Supplementary budget sails through K-P Assembly

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Tuesday passed a supplementary budget of more than Rs109 billion for the outgoing financial year 2020-21.

The opposition members withdrew all cut motions, while the ministers, advisors and special assistants to the chief minister presented their demands for grants.

The assembly session was chaired by Speaker Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani who expressed gratitude to joint opposition for providing a notable environment to the treasury during the budget session.

“The opposition lawmakers fully cooperated with the treasury and upheld the traditions of the K-P Assembly,” said the speaker, adding the house proceedings would send out a positive message to the other provincial assemblies.

He expressed hope that the joint opposition and treasury would cooperate with each other in future for development of a friendly environment in the assembly.

Provincial Minister for Finance Taimur Salim Jhagra said male and female lawmakers are respectable members of the house so a friendly environment should be adopted in the assembly.

Referring to the supplementary budget, he said the government was taking measures to streamline over 100 different kinds of allowances for government employees and also making a simple structure for few allowances.

He said the federal government would pay Rs36 billion in arrears to the province soon, adding that 100 per cent amount of Annual Development Programme would be released from July 1.

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Earlier, Jhagra briefed the house about supplementary budget details and said that Rs78 billion had been allocated for current expenditure and Rs30 billion for developmental expenses.

“The total allocated fund in FY2020-21 for the Annual Development Programme was Rs177 billion which has been decreased up to Rs166 billion by reviewing expenditures,” he said, adding Rs10billion had been reduced in developmental budget.

While explaining the supplementary budget, the minister said an amount of Rs984 million had been given to Food Department in subsidy, Rs6 billion to police department, Rs5 billion to Districts for non-salary expenditure, Rs3 billion for repair of roads and buildings, Rs1 billion to Elementary and Secondary Education, Rs1 billion to administration of justice, Rs1 billion to agriculture and Rs950 million to Higher Education.

(With input from APP)

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2021.