ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has opposed a proposed bill seeking amendments in the Article 84 of the Constitution, regarding prior approval from the National Assembly for issuance of supplementary grants.
Sources said that in a working paper prepared for the Senate Finance Committee, the Ministry of Finance and Revenue has opposed the bill, and explained the types of supplementary grants, and stated that there are three types of supplementary grants; (i) regular supplementary grants (RSGs); (ii) Technical supplementary grants (TGs) and token supplementary grants.
Only Regular SGs increase the volume of authorised budget, whereas Technical SG is only shifting of budget from one demand to the other. The ministry further added that supplementary grants range in cases of SG and TSG are from thousand to million and billion. The ministry added that the regular supplementary grants were allowed only for unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances, and were not a routine practice and discouraged as a government policy.
The procedure to allow Supplementary Grants (SGs) has been revised in the financial year 2018-2019. Now the SGs are allowed only with prior approval of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet. The Cabinet and the ECC meet once a week regularly. Thus, SG business is disposed of quickly.
Practically, it would not be cost effective as well as convenient to call the National Assembly session, so often. The ministry also explained in the working paper that Article 84 of the Constitution had also been reproduced in the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act, 2019, and any change in the Constitution would also require amendment in the PFM Act and Rules made there-under.
Section 34 of the PFM Act, 2019, states that the federal government shall place mid-year review report before the National Assembly by 28 February each year. This is another review of parliament on budget and actual expenditure of the federal government.
The ministry also added that the revised system has reduced the volume of SGs, and comparative position of Regular and Technical Supplementary grants of old procedure and revised procedure was also presented. The ministry said that regular supplementary grants have been reduced from 415 in 2017-2018 to 106, and technical supplementary grants from 184 to 116.
"The Regular SGs, however, it added were 336 in 2019-2020 and technical SGs 209, out of which 432 billion for Covid-19 pandemic," according to the ministry. The ministry added that the facility to regularise any excess money on any service during a fiscal year was available in Article 84 of the Constitution, and accordingly it laid before the National Assembly for approval, whereas, the amendment proposed was silent about the excess budget statement.
This will also create a problem to regularise the inevitable payments. The ministry further stated that the same constitutional provision was available under Article 124 of the Constitution for provincial governments. "In case of amendments in Article 84 for the federal government, the same has to be done for provincial governments in Article 124 of the Constitution. Thus, keeping in view these things, amendments in Article 84 of the Constitution is not required," the ministry added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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