Rs310 bn additional burden on budget from outgoing year

ISLAMABAD: An additional burden of more than Rs310 billion came on the federal budget during the outgoing year as this whopping amount was spent over and above the precise allocations made in the previous budget.

The regular supplementary grant is meant to provide funds for expenditure for purposes that were not foreseen at the time of finalization of demands for grants. Supplementary grants put additional burden on the budget.

In the new financial year, a sum of Rs310.451 billion was spent in addition to the actual budgetary allocations where in the preceding year it came up to Rs260.875 billion. This showed a hike of approximately Rs60 billion, according to the budget documents.

Of the total additional spending, regular supplementary grants amounted to Rs121.236 billion. According to the breakup, subsidies and miscellaneous expenditure took away Rs11.979 billion while an amount of Rs41.130 billion was shown in the head of “others”, which were not explained.

The additional servicing of foreign debt amounted to Rs4.899 billion while foreign loans payment to Rs63.225 billion. The technical supplementary grants came up to Rs189.213 billion. These included surrender from one grant to another; foreign grants, Prime Minister’s Relief Fund and Pakistan’s contribution towards Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) etc.

The documents containing supplementary demands for grants and appropriations for 2017-18 said that there are three categories of technical supplementary grants: to meet additional expenditure for a particular purpose by surrendering equivalent amount from savings under other existing grants, which doesn’t have any additional impact upon the Federal Consolidated Fund; to provide for adjustment in the accounts whereas these supplementary grants are only a book entry having no cash effect; and supplementary grants against “Foreign Aid Grant” received additionally in a year are technical in nature only to the extent that it does not add to the bank borrowing.

Under the technical supplementary grants, a token amount is provided through supplementary grant where a particular service that has not been provided for in a demand is required to be operated. The amount of this grant is Rs1,000. The balance expenditure in these cases is through re-appropriation from with the same demand.