Budget to be announced in NA on June 5: Dar

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenues Ishaq Dar said that the next budget for 2015-16 would be announced in the National Assembly on June 5, 2015.
“The next budget will be announced on June 5, 2015,” Dar confirmed while talking to The News here on Monday. He said that the budget preparation process would be paced up in days ahead. He termed it merely speculative that the budget would be unveiled on May 29, 2015.
However, the sources said that the Budget Strategy Paper (BSP) for 2015-16 was almost finalised in the aftermath of an agreement with the IMF. “The BSP for 2015-16 will be presented before the federal cabinet during this week which will be chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,” added the sources.
For finalising the budget outlay for the next fiscal year, the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) was expected to meet by May 19 for recommending the size of Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) to National Economic Council (NEC) for envisaging macroeconomic targets and approving the development outlay for the next fiscal year.
The Ministry of Planning and Development has proposed that the APCC should be convened on May 19 in order to recommend the PSDP size to the NEC. The sources said that Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal was expected to proceed on foreign visit so he had desired to convene APCC on May 19.
So far the date for convening NEC has not been finalised but the proposed date is May 29. However, it will depend upon the schedule of the prime minister who will preside over this meeting.
Development allocation of Rs580 billion has been proposed for next budget with local component of Rs345 billion and foreign exchange component of Rs235 billion in the fiscal year 2015-16.
However, the planning managers are facing difficult situation as the PM Secretariat is fully involved with commencement of this week in finalising development schemes which will be incorporated into the PSDP for next budget.
Either, the government will have to increase the PSDP size up to Rs758 billion as desired by the Planning Commission or it will have to abandon certain development schemes if it wants to keep the size at Rs580 billion for the next budget.
The political leadership will have to make a choice between closing down more ongoing projects for creating fiscal space or increasing the size of public investment to jump-start the sluggish economic activities.