Govt takes step to rein in current expenditure

ISLAMABAD: The federal government Tuesday announced its austerity measures agreeing on a 40 percent reduction in the fuel usage of government officials and Cabinet members along with a ban on the procurement of cars, overseas tours and treatments of government officials abroad, and buying of furniture and machinery for government offices.

The federal government also reinstated the weekly Saturday holiday in order to save energy and improve load-shedding management.

The decisions were taken by the federal cabinet at a meeting held in Islamabad under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Addressing a presser following the cabinet meeting along with Qamar Zaman Kaira, Aminul Haq, and Maulana Asad, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb stated that the cabinet had been advised to reduce the petrol quota by 33 per cent for government employees only.

However, the cabinet and premier decided to reduce it by 40 per cent. She said that the austerity measures the government is taking will start from within the cabinet to reduce the burden on the public.

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The federal cabinet also decided to restore Saturday as a public holiday in an effort to “save electricity”. Work from home has been proposed on Friday, she added. The prime minister constituted a committee to review the work from home proposal.

Efforts will be made to make government meetings as virtual as possible, the information minister said. The federal minister said that restoring Saturday as a holiday had an annual impact of $386 million and a $77 billion impact on the import bill.

She said the Cabinet was briefed on the power situation in the country. The country is facing an extraordinary heat wave. She said the demand for electricity is 28,400 MW, whereby, there is a gap of 4,600 MW between demand and supply of electricity.

While talking about the PML-N’s last tenure, she said 14,000 MW was added to the power system in 2018, whereas, the PTI government did not complete any of the power projects. The PML-N has solved the problem of power demand in an efficient manner during its tenure.

The meeting further contemplated the early closure of markets to maximise the use of daylight.

The information minister said that PM Shehbaz would hold a meeting tomorrow with traders and business communities to take them into confidence before making a decision regarding the closure of markets.

The prime minister has been holding meetings for the last two days to overcome the problem of load shedding.

The duration of power load shedding will be three and a half hours till June 15. With the operation of more plants after June 15, the duration of load shedding will be reduced to three hours, said the information minister.

Moreover, she said the duration of load shedding will be reduced to two and a half hours from June 25 to 29. On June 30, power outage will be reduced to two hours, she further said.

The cabinet meeting would ratify the decisions of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on June 3, and a plan for load shedding would be presented by the Power Division.

The information minister added that the cabinet meeting was briefed on ways to reduce load shedding and better the energy situation. It was also informed that the supply chain was facing shortage.

The federal cabinet also discussed renewable energy projects in detail.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022