Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) financial advisor Muzammil Aslam said on Saturday that the federal government was unaware of the province because of the political opposition.
Addressing a post-budget press conference, Aslam said that the economic position of the federal government is no longer stable, the growth rate falling to 2.7%.
He said KP was widely ignored in the federal development budget, receiving only 550 million rupees, forcing the province to increase its own development expenses due to the lack of federal support.
Aslam said the province had reached 93% of its income targets thanks to its own sources.
However, KP received 90 billion less rupees than its share under the National Finance Commission (NFC). He added that the provincial government had spent 20 billion rupees on its own treasure for tribal areas and used 70 billion rupees for merged districts without any federal support.
He said the province had not given new loans. The loans currently received came from the agreements signed previously. All future future, he said, would only be taken for major development projects.
By comparing budgets, Aslam noted that the center budget amounts to 1 billion of rupees, while KP is RS547 billion. He said that an NFC meeting was scheduled for August at the request of KP.
The chief minister of KP, he said, raised the issue of contributions pending with the center, which had promised payments. Despite this, he said, annual funds exceeding 47 billion rupees have never been released by the federal government for tribal areas.
Aslam recognized that for the first time, the center had allocated 70.4 billion rupees for the tribal districts merged. He said RS170 billion loans were inherited from previous governments.
A fund of 1.5 billion rupees had been created to manage debt reimbursements. He said that the province is satisfied on his part of the NFC and considers it to resolve its budgetary challenges.
Wages and pensions, he said, have been increased by 10% and 7% respectively, in accordance with federal adjustments.
For the new financial year, the KP government has included development plans worth 500 billion rupees in its RS195 billion development budget.
This year, 145 billion rupees on the Rs 156 billion rupees for established districts had already been released. For the tribal areas merged, 41 billion rupees were allocated, with 26.9 billion rupes paid.
He described it as the biggest development budget in KP’s history. “When we have taken office, the liabilities of highlighting extended over 10 years-they have now been reduced to 5.1 years,” he concluded.
