Less federal share and low provincial collections pulled down Sindh's revenues by Rs 70 billion over the last nine months that slowed down the ADP and other budgetary releases. Debating on the third fiscal quarter report - January-March 2016, Sindh Finance Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah told the provincial legislature that the federal government had not yet released Rs 60 billion to the province out of its total share of Rs 370 billion over the period.
"Sindh received Rs 310 billion in the last nine months from the federal government against Rs 370 billion," he said, hoping the centre would release the remaining amount to the province in the next three months. He also sought powers to enable the provinces to collect revenues under all heads to manage their budgetary expenditures. The other factor that scaled down Sindh's revenues growth was a low provincial collection, which was expected to be Rs 93 billion during the three quarters but only Rs 83.8 billion were collected, he said, adding that "the provincial collections also fell short by Rs 10 billion". Overall, he said that the province faced Rs 70 billion revenues decline.
For the current fiscal year, he said that the government had estimated Rs 726 billion revenue growth of which the federal government had to provide Rs 494 billion. Total provincial revenues collection was estimated atg Rs 124.6 billion mainly Rs 61 billion from sales tax on services and Rs 63.6 billion from other taxes, he added.
The revenue expenditure for Sindh was estimated at Rs 503.3 billion of which Rs 395.3 billion were released and Rs 285.2 billion spent. For ADP, the government had earmarked Rs 162 billion in the current fiscal budget of which Rs 142 was for the province and Rs 20 billion for districts. Till now, he said, Rs 88.4 of the provincial ADP had been released and Rs 61.4 billion spent. A budget of Rs 12.8 billion of ADP has been released to the districts, he said.
"If the provinces are empowered to collect revenues, then we don't need to depend on the federal government," he told the house, saying that Sindh was still beating other provinces and the center in revenues collection. "Sindh in taxes collection stands at top," he said, adding that the Constitutional structure enabled the federal government to collect more taxes under various heads.
MQM's Parliamentary Leader, Syed Sardar Ahmed appreciated the finance minster for a better change in budget making but urged him to improve it to the next level. He said that there should be a mechanism to spend the released funds. He said that out of Rs 392 billion revenue expenditure, the government could only spend Rs 285 billion while Rs 110 billion were still utilised. For education Rs 115 billion were released of which Rs 82 billion were spent, he said, adding that Rs 49 billion were released for health of which Rs 32 billion could be spent. For home department, he said that the government had released Rs 64 billion of which Rs 41 billion could be spent. "There is a need of funds monitoring," he said.
He demanded of the government to abolish the food department for its state trading had plunged it into Rs 72 billion of debt. "Every year the government pays Rs 6 billion against its debts," he told the house that "I don't understand why debts are not paid to the banks." PTI's Samar Ali Khan asked the government to go for direct taxes and reduce its revenues dependency on indirect ones. The government should focus on revenue growth, he urged, saying that "the government should also scale down its non-development spending". The house will now meet on Tuesday morning.
Comments
Comments are closed.