Seminar on budget of 2012-13: Managing and scrutinising the departmental budgets

Participants call for more coordination among coalition partners.


Qaiser Zulfiqar June 05, 2012

ISLAMABAD:


The government’s job is to prepare the budget but parliament’s responsibility is to pass and manage the spending after looking over them. The amendment approved by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Rules must be passed by the House urgently to allow committees to effectively scrutinise departmental budget in detail.


The speakers on Monday arrived to these conclusions at a seminar titled “Understanding Budget 2012-13”. The discussion was organised by PILDAT.

The participants included MNA Mir Aamir Ali Magsi, Financial Expert Nohman Ishtiaq, Air Vice Marshal (retd) Shahzad Chaudhry, Defence analyst Anjum Ibrahim and Resident Editor Business Recorder Aasiya Riaz.

Speaking at the occasion, Ishtiaq said that 163 demands for grants have been presented in the budget. Pakistan’s economic condition is fragile with 7.4% of our income or more than 1 trillion rupees as deficit.

He said that another way to understand the budget is to look at the figures of income, expenditure, deficit and loans.

Over time, the balance has tilted towards the parliament’s needs to exercise its constitutional role of budget scrutiny before passage and oversight of expenditure more effectively.

He said, Article 84 of the constitution gives the power to the executive to spend supplementary funds and seek post-dated approval from the parliament. This is bad financial management and the Parliament must legislate to amend this.

Speaking on the occasion, Anjum Ibrahim, said that while in UK the coalition government consulted its coalition partners while making the budget, Pakistan’s government did not consult its partners including the ANP, MQM and the PML-Q. MQM even outlined its own shadow budget which speaks volumes about the lack of consultation within the government and its partners.

Meanwhile, Chaudhry said that contrary to the popular perception, the armed forces follow a strict procedure, much like any other ministry, through which defence budget is prepared.

Focusing on military’s commercial interests and DHAs, he said that parliament as well as media must investigate details of how housing schemes are made and they will know the reality. In terms of commercial enterprises, questions must also be asked whether these have been created for the purpose of providing employment to able-bodied retirees at 45 years of age or any other purpose. Essentially, he reiterated, after a factual investigation, the decision to retain DHAs or commercial enterprises must be made by the society at large.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5th, 2012.

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