Swelling expenditures: PM’s office spent Rs1.5m a day in last tenure

Former PM Gilani lavished Rs200 million on employee-related expenses in 2011-12.

ISLAMABAD:

Despite experiencing dismal economic growth throughout their government’s five-year term, the two prime ministers of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), spent lavishly on their official residences and offices, according to an expenditure statement submitted in the National Assembly on Saturday.

The prime minister’s secretariat spent Rs1.2 billion on refreshments and other internal expenses from 2008 to 2013, amounting to Rs1.5 million a day on average in the last five years, a month-by-month expenditure statement submitted by the prime minister’s office revealed.



During the last government’s tenure, the budget for internal expenses and refreshments in the secretariat was Rs155.8 million.

“By the end of their term, the budget had to be raised to Rs437.9 million,” the statement disclosed.

In the last government, there were two wings in the prime minister’s secretariat – public and internal wings. The internal wing was headed by the military secretary (MS) and was responsible for the secretariat’s expenses and maintenance, said an officer from the PM office.



However, the present government changed the name from secretariat to Prime Minister Office but the two wings were still functional. Only a few sub-wings were abolished in order to achieve right-sizing, the officer added.

Former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani spent Rs88.9 million on employees’ related expenses in 2008-09 and another Rs35.7 million on operating expenses. Four years later, these expenses reached Rs200 million and Rs57.3 million, respectively.

“The prime minister’s engagements are on-going. Besides receptions for foreign dignitaries, guests and government officials keep coming all day for meetings and they are served with refreshments,” said the officer, adding that the internal wing was responsible for arranging refreshments at functions by the prime minister or his immediate family.

When Gilani first took office in 2008, the budget allocated for the secretariat’s internal wing for maintaining physical assets was only Rs888,935, however it jumped to Rs4.5 million and subsequently kept on increasing.

In the last two years of the PPP government, this budget for physical assets jumped from Rs3.3 million in 2011-12 to Rs117.6 million.

“Physical assets include cars and other vehicles besides other assets and the internal wing provides for its maintenance,” an official from the prime minister’s office told The Express Tribune.

In merely a year from 2011 to 2013, the internal wing’s expenditure witnessed a steep increase from Rs248.7 million to Rs416.5 million before the PPP government completed its term in March 2013 with Raja Pervaiz Ashraf as the prime minister.

Other expenses of internal wing included employees’ retirement benefits, grants, subsidies, loans and advances by the prime minister, and repair and maintenance of the secretariat. The biggest amount spent by the internal wing on repair and maintenance was Rs16.4 million in 2012-13.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2013.