The government has removed restriction of ways and means for releases of development budget during the last fiscal year of its tenure before the 2018 elections. Secretary Finance Shahid Mehmood said Thursday that "Restriction of ways and means on release of first instalment of the total allocation development budget has been removed in the current fiscal year." He stated this during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance chaired by Senator Saleem Mandviwalla. "We can even release more development funds on the request of the Planning Ministry," he further stated.
According to ways and means clearance proforma, the Finance Ministry is required to seek a number of information for release of funds with most important one regarding amount so far released and spent (head-wise utilisation report to the badded) and whether the amount is released through pre-audit system of AGPR or through assignment account procedure.
The Finance Division came under severe criticism on re-appropriation of allocation without the consent of the Parliament. The committee also expressed displeasure over presenting supplementary grants at the end of fiscal year. The committee chairman stated that Pakistan is the only country after Bangladesh and Denmark where supplementary grants (for excessive expenditure) are approved by the executive without the recourse to the Parliament.
He also proposed that supplementary grants should be presented to the Parliament on quarterly basis or biannually. The members of the committee also questioned as to why there was so much resistance from the Finance Division for presenting grants to the Parliament as and when releases are made.
Senator Fateh Muhammad Hassani and Senator Mohsin Leghari said the government overran the budget by Rs 310 billion in the last fiscal year and presented supplementary grants to the Parliament for approval after the approval of the budget for the next fiscal year.
The process adopted deprived the parliamentarians of asking some pertinent questions. The meeting also discussed overrun of the cost of development projects and non-submission of the PC-V (completion report) for keeping the corruption window open.
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