Pakistan's foreign debt reaching Rs9 trillion

Finance Secretary Salman Sadiq says the interest of this debt is being paid with the new loans.

Finance secretary Salman Sadiq has said that the foreign debt of the country is reaching Rs9 trillion and the interest of this debt is being paid with the new loans.

Explaining the audit objections raised in the public accounts committee regarding financial accounts of finance ministry in 2007-2008, the finance secretary showed his anger over the out-of-budget expenditures in the finance ministry.

He said that all the institutes are being run on subsidies and none of the institutions have the ability to meet their own expenditures.

He said the government is providing an annual subsidy of Rs400 billion to different ministries and institutes. The grant for PEPCO has exceeded Rs183 billion annually.

Acting chairperson of the public accounts committee, Yasmin Rehman said that the unnecessary expenditures increased despite monitoring.

Military accountant General Azam Khan said that the national treasury is facing an additional burden of Rs14 billion due to 12 per cent increase in military pensions in 2007-2008.

PAC formed a new committee to regulate the financial management in future.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 21, 2010

Due to a reporting error, the foreign debt figure was wrongly cited as Rs90 trillion.