Islamabad:
A few days before the presentation of the federal budget, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked the ministries to identify redundant government organizations which can be found in the budget to save money and also settle the question of subsidies in the power sector.
Government sources have told L’Express PK Press Club that after having made a briefing on the new budget, the Prime Minister has been about half a dozen committees to resolve the important pending problems. The committees were set up 10 days before the presentation of the budget in the National Assembly.
The Minister of Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb should present the budget on June 2 at the National Assembly. The Prime Minister asked him to solve all the problems going by on Saturday.
The sources have indicated that the discussions underway with the International Monetary Fund should be concluded today by the most crucial meeting between the IMF, the Federal Board of Revenue and the Ministry of Finance. They said the FBR had remained the thorny question in the talks and that some meetings were also tense in which the IMF staff questioned the credibility of the commitments given by the FBR at the time of the staff discussions in March.
The sources said that after the budget briefing, the Prime Minister decided to build up the committees to solve the outstanding problems. He set the deadlines until May 24 for ministries aimed at concluding the budget year in time.
The sources indicated that the Prime Minister had asked all the ministries to review the pink book to identify redundant and dysfunctional organizations and recommended liquidation within the framework of the Government Cost and Reduction of Cost Reduction Program. The deadline is May 24.
The Prime Minister had set up a cabinet committee on reducing the size of the government, which undertook the exercise in five different phases. However, the results remained lower than the government’s own expectations.
The Federal Rights Committee should now finish the objective of the objective and the justification of various public enterprises, which will be completed by the end of December 2025.
In a briefing at the Senate Committee on the Permanence of Finance last month, the firm division said that the desire to reduce public spending by removing the SAB 36 billion saving positions per year. He also informed that a fifth of the savings had been ensured by reducing the lowest remuneration positions of gardeners, sweepers and peons.
About 40,000 positions have already been abolished or declared death positions in the public sector. Of these 11,558 positions which were abolished or declared dying belonged to the lowest remuneration scale of Pakistan 1. This is equal to 29% of the total positions which are deleted. The average salary of the remuneration scale is RS42 888 and the peons, gardeners and sweepers are recruited on this scale.
The committee was informed that the abolition of all these 40,000 posts would save 36.3 billion rupees each year. But 19% or 7 billion savings were against the lowest 1 remuneration scale.
The Prime Minister also asked the Minister of Finance to submit contours of the main budgetary initiatives and priorities which will form the narrative component of budgetary discourse. The instructions were also sent to the advertising wing of the government’s media and the ministry to ensure a favorable account, added the sources.
In an important development, the Prime Minister also asked the Minister of Planning and the Minister of Finance to hold advisory meetings with the ministries concerned to deliberate on plans, projects and initiatives proposed for the financial year 2025-26.
The committee was responsible for completing the work by today (Friday) and ensuring that only projects are added in the public sector development program which can be fully funded in the middle of the scarcity of resources.
The sources have said that Darrier Ishaq Dar should chair a meeting today (Friday) to finalize the PSDP next year. The size of the development budget remains uncertain, because the Ministry of Planning and the Coalition partners called the size proposed by 921 billion insufficient Rs.
The sources indicated that the PM asked the party concerned that the proposals agreed, as well as a summary of key initiatives of all important ministries, were to be submitted for its exam.
Sources have said that one of the outstanding questions is the amount of money that should be allocated to discretionary expenses as part of the parliamentary program. The initial allowance for this exercise was around 50 billion rupees, but the chances are that the expenses will be higher than that, unlike the cuts against other ministries.
For the next exercise, the government puts pressure on to allocate a greater pie to these diets, called the SCO success program.
Ishaq Dar chaired on Thursday the 45th meeting of the steering committee of the ODD (SAP) program to carry out. DAR highlighted the importance of involving local communities in the identification of basic development infrastructure projects. He underlined the determination of the government to ensure that resources are used in the best interests of the citizens of Pakistan, aligning them on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It was decided that the unrelated funds will be delivered while the implementation agencies had to use the funds allocated effectively and responsiblely. However, the unspected money is hardly 2 billion rupees, the sources said.
The PM also asked the Ministries of Finance and Electricity to settle the question of the quantum of electricity subsidies. A meeting between the two ministries took place on Thursday but the question did not remain unresolved, said a senior ministry official.
The government has allocated RS1.04 Billions for electricity subsidies for the next fiscal year, which is equivalent to 0.8% of GDP. The sources said that the electricity division required around 180 billion rupees due to the oil tax. Shehbaz Sharif increased the RS10 sample rate per liter to reduce the cost of electricity from RS1.71 per unit.
The PM has indicated that the energy division and the finance division should further refine the proposal concerning the allocation of the oil development tax (PDL) for the supply of tariff subsidies, the sources said.
The PM asked the petroleum division to take the lead and settle the question of the adjustments of the tax on the inputs of refineries. The oil division was invited to solve the problem in consultation with the finance division and the income division by Saturday.
