Imran flays ‘govt of crooks’ for slashing funds for tribal districts

Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has lashed out at the federal government for slashing funds of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s tribal districts in the proposed budget 2022-23, saying the move shows “incompetence and ill-intent of government of crooks”.

The PTI chief said his government had allocated Rs131 billion for the ex-Fata region whereas the incumbent coalition government led by PML-N budgeted only Rs110 billion and reduced developmental funding.

“Given the special needs of tribal districts, my govt had increased their funding by 3x to Rs131 bn. Imported Govt has budgeted only Rs110bn, reduced development funding, 0 allocation for displaced persons & 0 increase in current budget,” he wrote on his official Twitter handle.

K-P Finance Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra also slammed the federal government, saying that reduction is “inexcusable and unacceptable”.

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“The frozen current budget grant of 60 bln does not cover the outgoing year's pay and operational costs,” he wrote on his official Twitter handle.

Last year, then federal government issued the entire amount of over Rs121 billion allocated for the tribal districts of K-P in the fiscal year 2020-21 under the 10th National Finance Commission (NFC) award.

The Finance Division had said 3% of the award was allocated to the K-P’s tribal districts which were collectively called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) till May 2018. It clarified that it has no role in the NFC related decisions.

According to documents available with The Express Tribune, Rs145.6 billion were allocated for the tribal districts in 2019-20 and the Finance Division issued Rs97.60 billion.

Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on Friday proposed a Rs9.5 trillion inflationary budget amid a daunting challenge to meet ambitious targets.

The new budget for the fiscal year 2022-23 provides solace to the salaried class whose tax burden has been significantly lessened in addition to 15% increase in salaries of the inflation-stricken government employees.