Islamabad:
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked for an explanation for the three missing International Monetary Conditions (IMF) (IMF) because Punjab blames the center of low income projections and holding its share of taxes – a deficit that led to the province to violate its excess species.
Sources have said that the federal government considers that the objective has been missed due to the excessive expenses of Punjab, although the two governments are led by the PML-N.
The Prime Minister had asked for a response from the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Board of returned to the history of the Express PK Press Club concerning Pakistan missing three key targets of the IMF.
The newspaper indicated that Pakistan had missed the conditions for met12.3 billion tax objective, collecting 50 billion rupees among traders and generating more than RS1.2 Billions of cash excess by the four provinces.
According to a summary of budget operations published this week by the Ministry of Finance, the provinces failed to save the RS1.2 Billions of rupees targeted during the last financial year by a wide margin.
Provincial governments had given the understanding of the IMF and the federal government to generate surpluses of 1.2 billion of cash rupees, provided that the FBR would achieve its tax objective. However, the four provinces collectively generated a cash surplus of 921 billion rupees, missing the target target of 296 billion.
During the deliberations, the sources indicated that the authorities of the federal government argued that the excess condition of provincial cash had been mainly missed due to excessive expenses by Punjab. They said that when the federal government approached the Punjab government, it returned the responsibility of the center.
The sources said that the Punjab government has said at the center that the provincial cash flow objective could not be achieved because the finance division had not transferred the share due to the national finance committee and that the FBR has not achieved its objectives.
However, the authorities of the Ministry of Finance were of the opinion that the other three provinces also received less money compared to projections, but they still performed better with Balutchistan exceeding the objective of the IMF.
Documents of the Ministry of Finance said that Punjab, with a total turnover of 4 billions of rupees, spent 3.6 billions of rupees, generating a surplus of 348 billion rupees. The amount was 282 billion rupees or 45% less than the IMF target of 630 billion rupees.
The Sindh also missed the IMF’s objective with a margin of 16 billion rupees or 5.5% and showed a surplus in cash of 283 billion. The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was almost close to the objective with a gap of only 2 billion rupees, but the Balutchistan government exceeded RS3 billion.
But the provincial authorities said they were painted as the culprit despite the Ministry of Finance had not paid their actions due to the real revenue collection.
“Based on the real FBR collection of RS11.7 Billions, the financial division retained the June punjab branch of the federal divisible swimming pool for 190.8 billion,” said Azma Bukhari, Minister of Information of Punjab in response to the questions sent by the Express PK Press Club.
Azma Bukhari also declared that if the RS191 billion amounts had been published by June, the surplus of Punjab would have been 539.2 billion rupees against a budgetary surplus of 630 billion, which was committed with an FBR objective of RS12.97 billion rupees, whatever the FBR failure.
In the last budget, the government had given RS12.97 Billion of tax objectives at the FBR, but it ended up collecting at Rs11,744 Billions – the second highest deficit in Rs1,23 Billions of Rupes.
The provincial minister of information added that Punjab had always maintained with the federal government that the surplus commitment of Punjab was subordinate and proportional to the achievement of its collection objective.
She also declared that the RS191 billion divisible funds of Punjab has been preserved and reflected as a balance of federal cash, which has considerably improved the main balance of the federal government, to the detriment of the real surplus of Punjab.
“Until mid-June 2025, the provinces had no official intimation from the finance division concerning the reduction of the FBR objective below the revised objective of RS12.3 Billions,” said the Minister of Information. She said that it was the last officially revised FBR target with the IMF after the first 2024-25 review.
On June 12, 2025, the finance division officially hinted a revised estimate on the provincial part for the year 2024-25, calculated against a planned FBR collection of RS11.9 Billions, the provincial government said. He even added the actual collection of FBR reached RS11,74 Billions.
The provincial minister of information said that Punjab was on the right track to achieve its spending and reception targets, as well as surplus objectives during the last financial year. If FBR had collected this total amount of RS12.3 Billions, the surplus of the punjab would have increased by RS160 billion additional rupees while the total surplus would have been 699 billion rupees, she added.
“The FBR ended well below the revised estimation mark. With such low income forecasts and drastic decrease adjustments so late during the FBR fiscal year, it is not reasonable to expect that a province achieves the budgetary estimates of the excess objectives,” said the Minister of Information.
