Rs 900 billion KP budget approved amid noisy scenes

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Wednesday passed Rs 900 billion budget for the year 2019-20 as the Speaker guillotined the cut motions of the opposition on the demands for grants for different departments. The Assembly resumed proceedings on the cut motions with Speaker Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani in the chair, who guillotined the cut motions in the absence of the opposition.
A total of Rs 855 billion was sought by the provincial government in different heads through 61 demands for grants. The opposition have submitted 689 cut motions and only two were passed after debate in the House. The first demand for grant to the tone of Rs 344.598 million was for the provincial Assembly.
Though the expenditure is not charged, but its unanimous or unopposed passage has become a tradition. Therefore, none of the legislator dared to move cut motion against the demand.
The opposition legislators were in Peshawar High Court (PHC) to file petition against the ignoring of the constituencies of opposition in the annual development programme for the financial year 2019-20 and on returned to the House found that the chair had passed all the demands for grants pertaining to government departments, allowing the passage of the budget from the provincial legislature.
The opposition members in a protest encircled dice of the chair and tore copies of the budget amid slogans of "budget namanzoor" and the rumpus continued for an hour in the House. The normalcy returned to the House after the chair gave floor to Parliamentary Leader of ANP Sardar Hussain Babak to speak on budget. By the time leader of the House Chief Minister Mahmood Khan had also arrived to attend the proceeding.
The CM in his address defended the budget 2019-20 saying that it is historic as it also contains huge allocation for the merged areas. He said he was thankful to Chief of Army Staff and Pakistan Army for their cooperation and assistance in allocating budget for merged tribal districts.
He assured that problems of the constituencies mentioned by the respective MPAs in their speeches during budget discussion would be addressed and maintained that necessary legislation would be enacted from the House to this effect.