KP agrees to present surplus budget

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Saturday agreed with the federal government to present a surplus budget for the fiscal year 2023-24 but made it conditional with clearance of dues of the province.

KP Chief Secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry told The News that the provincial government would facilitate the federal government, which was in negotiations with the IMF, by presenting a surplus budget and decreasing the development budget.

“The federal government has approached all the provinces and informed them about the recent condition of the IMF and suggested the provincial governments to present surplus budgets. We have agreed with the federal government and decided to reduce the development budget,” he said.

The chief secretary said there was no other option but to reduce the expenditure, hire no more staff on unnecessary positions and then bring some cuts in the development budget.

Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry said they had been in negotiations with the federal government and demanded dues of the KP government, particularly the net hydel profit.

“There has been no issue in payment of the National Finance Commission and the federal government has been making regular payments. There is an issue in payments of the net hydel profit and that’s what we are regularly discussing with the central government, which had recently made some payments,” the chief secretary explained.

The chief secretary said they had demanded of the federal government to pay Rs57 billion from the dues of net hydel profit. He said the federal government had recently paid Rs1.5 billion and then made payment of Rs2 billion. “I hope the federal government will pay us Rs2 billion before the budget,” he said.