CM’s office expenses cut by 76pc: Chohan

LAHORE: Punjab government spokesperson and Prisons Minister Fayyaz-ul-Hasan Chohan has said the expenses of Chief Minister's Office have been reduced by 76 per cent and, on the instructions of Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, the details of the expenditures spent under different heads have been made public.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the minister said that in the previous tenure of 2017-18, 173 vehicles were in use of the CM’s office, whereas, the number of vehicles has been reduced to 110 during 2020-21 which include the vehicles used by officers and personnel of CM Secretariat. In the previous regime in 2017-18, Rs 42million were spent on the maintenance of the vehicles, whereas, the expenditures under this head remained limited to only Rs15 million during 2020-21. In 2017-18, 372,000 litre oil was used in the vehicles of CM office, while in 2020-21 only 228,000 litre oil was used. During 2017-18, Rs 35million were spent under the fuel head in the CM's office, whereas, during 2020-21, despite increase in petrol prices, only Rs 27million were spent under this head.

The non-salary expenditure of the CM office was Rs240 million in 2017-18, whereas, only Rs140 million were spent under this head in 2020-21. An amount of Rs90 million was spent under the head of entertainment and gifts in 2017-18, whereas, Rs44 million was spent in 2020-21 under this head.

Similarly, in 2017-18, Rs96 million were spent from the chief minister’s discretionary funds in 2017-18 while only Rs23 million were spent from these funds during 2020-21. The minister said that a comparison analysis of these two years revealed that during the tenure of Chief Minister Usman Buzdar 64 per cent expenditures under the vehicle maintenance head were saved. Similarly, 39 per cent as compared to previous tenures was saved under the head of fuel charges, 36pc in utilisation of cars, 26pc in the use of other fuels, 40pc in non-salary expenditures whereas expenses under the head of entertainment and gifts have been reduced by 50pc.

As compared to use of the CM’s discretionary grant in 2020-21 the same is 76pc less than the previous government in 2017-18. The Punjab government spokesperson maintained that transparency was the hallmark of the PTI government. There is no ambiguity about the fuel cost and funds but information on some certain issues could be made public due to security reasons, he stated. The austerity campaign launched on the instructions of the CM is being yielded positive results, Fayyaz-ul-Hasan said.