Approval of supplementary grants: Ministries, Divisions criticised for lack of proper homework

Cabinet Division has reportedly lashed out at the Ministries/ Divisions for not doing proper homework prior to seeking supplementary or technical supplementary grants from the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, well informed sources in Commerce Ministry told Business Recorder.

Federal Government allowed supplementary grants and technical supplementary grants amounting to Rs 392.558 billion during the financial year 2018-19, of which Rs 222.140 billion has been approved by the National Assembly during the budget session 2019-20. The approval of remaining amount of Rs 170.418 billion for the period of May 22 to June 30, 2019 from National Assembly is still required.

The Cabinet Division which presents summary of all the concerned Ministries to the Federal Cabinet or Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, has observed that the Ministries / Divisions are submitting the cases of Supplementary Grants (SGs) and Technical Supplementary Grants (TSGs) to the ECC without concrete proposals and without indicating savings in the heads of accounts in their budgetary allocations from where TSG will be met.

Cabinet Division further stated that at times, such proposals are not clearly endorsed by the Finance Division, the sources added.

"This not only reflects poor financial discipline / budgeting but also entails lengthy discussion among the members wasting their precious time in the meetings," the sources quoted Cabinet Divisions saying.

All Ministries/ Divisions have been asked to submit their cases to the ECC after observing necessary procedure and obtaining clear concurrence of Finance Division and an equivalent amount being surrendered / saved from one demand to the other should invariably be indicated to facilitate the forum in taking a decision. The funds, if required, for next financial year should also be earmarked supported by cogent reasons.

Article 84 of the Constitution provides that if in respect of any financial year, it is found that the amount authorized to be expended for a particular service is insufficient, or that a need has arisen for expenditure upon some new service not included in the annual budget state for that year, the federal government will lay before the National Assembly a supplementary budget statement of that expenditure.

Such supplementary budget statement shall be subject to the same constitutional provisions as are applicable to the annual budget statement.

As per previous practice Finance Division laid these supplementary grants before the National Assembly with excess budget statement after receipt of report of the Public Accounts Committee of that financial year. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) expressed grave concern on delay in presenting before the House for approval of supplementary schedule of authorized expenditure and directed to prepare a financial statement of these supplementary grants for its approval from the National Assembly to meet the constitutional requirement as early as possible.

According to clause 3 of the Article 82 of the Constitution, 'no demand for a grant shall be made except on the recommendations of the federal government,' with

Commerce Ministry having an edge over other Ministries as it spends funds from the Export Development Fund (EDF). Recently, millions of dollars were approved to be spent on Expo 2020 to be held in Abu Dhabi to be funded from the national kitty.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019