Punjab Assembly: Treasury members get serious

Ayesha Javed calls for empowerment of PA committees, local government elections.

LAHORE:

Treasury MPAs made pertinent observations and constructive criticisms of the proposed budget for 2013-14 on Saturday, a day after being accused by the opposition of wasting the time allotted for the debate on paeans to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif rather than reasoned discussion on issues.

Ayesha Javed, a seasoned and respected lawmaker with a sound grasp of parliamentary procedures and government policies, made the speech of the day, winning applause from the opposition benches.

First, she noted that last year, the Punjab Assembly had amended the rules on budget speeches so that pre-budget discussions were supposed to be held in January and March. “Unfortunately, the government did not comply,” she said.

Next, Javed called for the empowerment of the PA’s standing committees, which are meant to assess the performance of government departments. At present, she said, these bodies were so toothless that they couldn’t even call the secretary of the department to testify. Like National Assembly committees, the Punjab Assembly bodies should be able to take suo motu notice of issues that concerned their department, she said. They should be able to summon heads of departments and see their annual progress reports. They should get three-month progress reports on the department’s targets, so lawmakers could better perform the task of oversight.



The PML-N MPA called for a Provincial Finance Commission, modelled on the National Finance Commission, to ensure equitable distribution of the Punjab’s resources. She noted that the PML-N had in its manifesto pledged to hold local government elections, but had allocated no funds for polls in the budget. Local elections were essential, she said, for democracy to function better for the people.

She also proposed that that release of funds should be mentioned in the budget alongside allocations to present a clearer picture of the government’s spending. About agriculture and irrigation, she said that rather than starting new projects, the government should focus on upgrading existing ones. Rather than infrastructure, the focus should be on research in farming.

Javed also had some praise for the budget. She welcomed the increased allocations for teacher training and for the education assessment system, which looked at enrolment, retention, drop-out rate and student performance.

The opposition benches, led by PTI’s Mian Aslam Iqbal, thumped their desks at each point Javed made, while Speaker Rana Iqbal could be seen gesturing to her from his seat with his palm facing out and fingers pointed up as if to say, ‘Take it easy.’

Thana culture and hospital beds

Mehmood Qadir Leghari of the PML-N said that the government should bring the same determination it showed in defeating dengue fever in Lahore to changing ‘thana culture’, i.e., the way members of the general public are treated at police stations.

He demanded funds for building infrastructure in Kot Chutta, which was given tehsil status two years ago. Nishtar Medical Hospital should be upgraded, he said, as it catered not just to south Punjab, but patients from Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh too. The cardiology hospital in Multan should be expanded and a similar facility should be built in DG Khan. The road network in DG Khan should be expanded as all divisional headquarters in the province had dual-carriage roads, but DG Khan had single roads.

He said that the government should focus on primary education and basic health units. It should make sure that sufficient medicines and doctors are available at BHUs. Schools located in remote areas should be given more funds so they could get missing facilities.

Sheikh Allauddin, on a point of order, asked the speaker to direct all deputy commissioners in the districts to make price control committees more effective in controlling price hikes.

Budget amendments

Some treasury members had planned to raise points during Saturday’s debate but did not get the time to do so. They had to hand over their points, for consideration and incorporation in the budget, to Finance Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman.

These included the suggestion that the proposed Rs290 billion development budget for 2013-24 was “highly inflated”. It was noted that the revised size of the Annual Development Programme 2012-2013 was Rs166.858 billion, and that a government white paper stated that the fiscal space for the 2013-14 ADP was Rs230 billion.

The government had increased the ADP through a “vague promise” of Rs29 billion in foreign project assistance and an operational shortfall of Rs30 billion.

Another point related to the finance minister’s claim in the budget speech that the government would cut non-development spending by 15 per cent. The budget put current expenditure for 2013-14 at Rs607.569 billion, against last year’s budget estimate of Rs549.762 billion, an increase of 10.51 per cent rather than a decrease.

It was also pointed out that the federal government had provided Rs708.727 billion to the Punjab in the NFC Award whereas the white paper put this amount at Rs702.12 billion. No amount was shown for the Workers Welfare Fund.

The MPAs also noted that the allocation for education affairs and services had actually been reduced from Rs41.150 billion to Rs40.596 billion. They said that a lot of spending in various sectors had been put down as block allocations, which can be utilised at the chief minister’s discretion. Details for why and how block allocations are made should be provided, they proposed.

The budget also did not include details on projects to be executed in partnership with private entities in 2013-14. And some projects mentioned in the budget speech have not been included in the ADP. These include the Bahawalpur-Hasilpur road, a bridge over the River Jhelum at Langarwal, a bridge over the River Sindh at Layyah, and the Mianwali-Bannu road.

Deputy Speaker Sher Ali Gorchani adjourned the session till Monday morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2013.