The Ministry of Finance would finalise development budget for the next fiscal year from next Monday by holding week long meetings of priorities committees, sources in the Finance Ministry told Business Recorder. Sources said that priorities committee's meetings would begin from April 11 to finalise the development as well as recurrent budget for the next fiscal year before taking decision as to how much allocation should be made for development spending for fiscal year 2016-17.
A week long meeting would be presided over jointly by finance and development ministries to finalise the development budget of ministries and divisions. "The Finance Ministry has already issued ceiling of recurrent budget to the ministries and divisions and ceiling of development budget would be sent to them in one or two days," they added. As per a tentative schedule, Finance Division and Planning Commission would hold Annual Plan Co-ordination Committee (APCC).
The budget finalised and approved by the APCC would be put up to the National Economic Council (NEC) to be presided over by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the first week of May 2016. The Principal Accounting Officer (PAO) will be invited in the priorities committees' meetings for discussion on both the current and development budget and priorities.
An official said that the priorities committee meetings are held each year for budget making process and Finance Division along with Planning and Development discuss in detail with the principal accounting officers about the spending of allocation of outgoing fiscal year current. The decision for the budget of next fiscal year would be taken on the basis of past performance. The discussion during the priorities committee's meetings will also focus on (output) services to be delivered and policy priorities. The completion of budget review and approval process of the decision taken in the priorities committees would be taken at the APCC meeting.
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