Rights ministry faces 40% cut in funds

Govt cuts 40 per cent of the budget allocated for the federal ministry of human rights.

ISLAMABAD: The government has cut 40 per cent of the budget allocated for the federal ministry of human rights, disbursing 60 per cent the remaining funds for employees’ salaries, officials said on Wednesday.

An official source told The Express Tribune that the ministry was previously allocated Rs20 million in annual budget for fiscal 2010-11 to meet its expenditures in terms of salaries and for launching various public awareness schemes.

He said that Rs12 million would be disbursed for salaries, adding that the government had cut Rs8 million needed for initiating other projects.

The official said the reduction in ministry allocations was part of the austerity drive ordered by the prime minister to meet extraordinary expenses to overcome devastations caused by recent floods, adding that the ministry could not initiate any project because of a lack of funds.

“The ministry cannot even organise five seminars planned to sensitise people in various public and private sectors about various human rights issues in the federal and provincial capitals,” he said. “The ministry is not even in a position to send its representatives to areas like Sialkot where two brothers had been killed recently by an angry mob in the presence of police officials,” he said.  “The ministry and its projects do not seem to be among government’s priorities.”

He said that the ministry had been assured by the prime minister’s office about the release of funds which the ministry needed to initiate various human rights projects. The funds are still frozen and are yet to be released.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2010.