Pakistan and US Governments are currently negotiating a new mechanism for reimbursement of Coalition Support Fund (CSF) after the existing mechanism expires in October 2016.
In "Mid-year review of budget of the Ministry of Defence", the Ministry claims that the current year being the last year in respect of the CSF, a balance amount of $200 million remains to be cleared by USA.
The government earmarked Rs154 billion against revised estimates of Rs169.572 billion in outgoing financial year 2015-16. However, 200 million dollars are yet to be cleared by the US under this account.
Budget 2016-17 has projected a total of Rs170.7 billion from US on account of the CSF in 2016-17. However, defence sources told this correspondent that Pakistan is negotiating new arrangements with the US regarding CSF and nothing has been finalised so far on this account.
Sources, however, added that Pakistan's funding under the CSF is 'safe' till June 2017 as US legislation forums have considered and approved $900 million in their next budget starting from October 1, 2016.
On average, Pakistan received around $1 billion annually under CSF since 9/11/2001 from the US. In totality on account of the CSF, economic and military assistance, Pakistan has received around $13 billion inflows compared to its estimated losses of $118 billion in the war on terror.
Last month, the US House of Representative rejected two amendments aimed to cut the CSF for Pakistan, calling it too critical to enable the country to effectively deal with future challenges.
Debating the annual Defence Appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2017, Congressman Ted Poe of Texas (Republican Party) and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (Democratic Party) moved an amendment to cut the CSF for Pakistan from $900 million to $700 million. In May, 2016 the House had approved a $900 million CSF outlay for Pakistan as part of the annual Defence Authorisation Bill.
Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC), a policy research think tank, claims that the federal non-tax revenues declined from Rs 592 billion during the first nine months of 2014-15 to Rs 445 billion during the same period of 2015-16, implying a decline of Rs 147 billion. The fall, SPDC claims, is due to Rs 74 billion reduction in the inflows from the CSF.
This correspondent queried the US Embassy on the CSF reimbursed in 2015-16 and the proposed reimbursement for 2016-17 by text message however did not receive any response till the filing of this report.
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