Govt plans to unveil budget on May 4; hefty funds for new initiatives envisaged

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League's (N) government is likely to present its last budget of present tenure on May 4 with hefty allocations under the head of ‘new initiatives’, leaving a room for the next government to determine projects of its own choice, officials said on Thursday.

“We have proposed to the government to allocate a lump-sum amount under new initiatives without devising specific programs or projects and it should be left to the next government after winning elections to undertake projects in line with their party’s manifesto,” a senior finance ministry’s official said.

The official said there has been a discussion in the recent past that the incumbent regime should not deprive the right to decide projects to the next government.

Policymakers agreed that budget should be considered as a business as usual and the government should present the budget in such a manner, which is acceptable to all the major political parties and whereby decisions should be taken on the basis of consensus within the parliament.

Officials said the policymakers have found an amicable solution in the wake of change of government over the next few months by proposing lump-sum allocations so that the incoming government will be given space to implement its manifesto from the start of its tenure.

The situation, however, will become clearer next week. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi re-convened a meeting of National Economic Council (NEC) on March 7.

A scheduled NEC meeting could not take place last week due to an overextended meeting of Council of Common Interests.

Finance ministry officials said government planned to present the FY2018 budget before the parliament on May 11, but it revised the plan.

Officials said there is still a resistance from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on the new date as the Bureau expressed reservations on early finalising national accounts for calculating provisional GDP growth numbers.

Rukhsana Yasmin, secretary of Statistics Division was, however, sure to come up with data before the budget presentation.

“PBS will be making presentation on national accounts to the relevant body in April,” Yasmin told The News.

The National Accounts Committee will have to finalise annual growth on the basis of just seven or maximum eight months of data from different economic sectors, including agriculture, industrial and services.

After finding out solution to this emerging problem, the finance ministry planned to give indicative budget ceiling by end of the ongoing month. Consequently, another committee (Priorities Committee) is expected to meet during the second week of April

for three to four days to finalise its inputs for holding annual plan coordination committee in the third week of April.

Officials said the meeting of National Economic Council can take place anytime by end of April or maximum on May 1 for approving macroeconomic framework and development outlay for the next fiscal year.