The Senate Standing Committee on Finance expressing serious reservations over the absence of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Chairman Privatisation Commission Mohammad Zubair has decided to convey its concerns in writing as well as to ask them to show up, otherwise, the matter would be taken to the House. A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance chaired by Saleem Mandviwalla lodged its protest against the absence of Ishaq Dar and Muhammad Zubair while Senator Kamil Ali Agha stated that the Finance Minister has hardly attended any meeting.
The committee in its meeting took up range of agenda items. While discussing implementations status of the committee's recommendations to the Finance Bill 2015-2016, chairman stated that committee has proposed 92 recommendations but the government accepted only 20 recommendations. Mandviwalla stated that he had serious reservations over government policy of not taking committee proposals seriously. A senior official said that the government may have to cut development spending of around Rs 200 billion to meet the agreed fiscal deficit with the International Monetary Fund for the current fiscal year, obviously due to possible revenue shortfall. According to an Additional Secretary of Finance Ministry the federal government may have to release Rs 500 billion against Rs 700 billion budgeted for the current fiscal year. Mandviwalla said that the federal government has committed to the IMF that it would slash development spending to achieve 4.3 percent fiscal deficit.
According Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Riaz Riazuddin said Pakistan GDP growth may be between 4 - 5 percent for the current fiscal year against a target of 5.5 percent and hinted at possible decline in remittances especially from oil producing countries feared due to return of Pakistanis from these countries because of slow down of their economies. The committee deferred PIA privatisation matter because of absence of Muhammad Zubair,
The Economic Affairs Division informed the committee that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank do not provide any funds to the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) directly but stated that the government does not have the details of donors providing funds to NGOs. The committee sought details of NGOs working in Balochistan which are receiving foreign assistance. Chairman Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) informed the committee that inquiry was conducted in the increase in airfares during recent strike of the PIA and stated that there was nominal increase due to rise in demand.
However, some members of the committee termed the inquiry report as incomplete and asked the CCP to review it again. The CCP had not called travel agents during its enquiry, as the officials Airblue and Shaheen Airlines blamed agents for increase in fares, he added.
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