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Thursday, November 26, 2009
By Our Correspondent
LAHORE
INVOLVEMENT of parliamentarians and civil society/community groups in budget making process right from its start to the approval is imperative for pro-people budgeting.
It was a joint statement of the speakers at the Punjab Peoples Budget Conference, organised by the Action-Aid Pakistan here at a local hotel on Wednesday.
PPP MPA Amna Bhuttar said the Punjab government did not give any consideration to the budget related recommendation made by women parliamentarians.
She said budget making was a technical job and difficult task to understand and interpret. Many MPs are unable to grasp the nitty-gritty and technical language of the budget.
They are given copies of heavy budget books to review within short period of only two days. She urged the need for training of MPs specially women parliamentarians on understanding and analysing budget. She said allocation of funds for certain sectors was important but more important was effective utilisation of the funds.
PML-Q MPA Amana Ulfat criticising the PML-N government said it didn’t have the ability to utilise the allocated funds as Rs 10 billion of social sector remained unspent in the last year budget of 2008-09. She said the Punjab government had not allocated even a single penny for the development and welfare of women.
While presenting the analysis of Punjab budget, Adam Malik of Action-Aid-Pakistan said there was a need to extensively engage civil society groups, trade unions, professional forums and other forums in a consultative process regarding all stages of budget that include preparation, approval and implementation and even audit of previous years.
He said parliamentary forums should assert their active role in supervising the budget preparation process at different departments especially standing committees should discuss the sector budgets by different departments before submitting to the Finance Department in January.
Participating organisations across Punjab, including Women Workers Help Line, Lahore, Jaag Welfare Movement of Rahimyar Khan, Pakistan welfare Society of layyah, Hirrak Development Organisation of Kot Addu, presented analysis of budgets of their relevant districts.
Presenting analysis of the district Lahore Budget 2008-09, Bushra Khaliq said the funds of school management committees were cut from Rs 50,000 to 25000. It was planned to open 10 new mother-child healthcare centres but not a single centre was opened in the current financial year. Same is the situation with the basic health centre as no the BHU was upgraded.
The conference was attended by parliamentarians, representatives of political parties, trade unions, home-based women workers, landless peasants and minorities from across the Punjab.
Those who spoke on the occasion include Ms Hina Sheikh from the SAHI, Dr Bela Raza Jamil from the Idara Taleem -O-Aghai, Salman Abid from the Strengthening Participatory Organisation ,Zahid Islam, trade unionist, Zulfiqar Ali from the Hirrak Development Centre, Khalid Masood from the Jaag Welfare Movement, Kirdar Sidiqui from the Awam Dost Foundation and Habib Joya from the Pakistan Welfare Society.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
