Caretaker PM or elected PM to approve budget

ZAHEER ABBASI

ISLAMABAD: Finance Ministry has initiated budget-making process by issuing “Budget Call Circular” for year 2013-14, informed sources told Business Recorder.

The meetings on ‘rationalisation of recurrent budget 2013-14, were scheduled to be held in the first two weeks of January and the Finance Ministry had set February 8 as the last date for submission of a letter for indicative budget ceilings by the Ministries and Divisions for current and development expenditure.

The meetings of priorities committee are scheduled to take place on April 1-12 for review of ministries and divisions budget. The Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) to be jointly chaired by the Finance Minister and Deputy Chairman Planning Commission (DCPC) has been scheduled for the last week of April 2013 to finalise the macroeconomic framework of the country and Public Sector Development Programmes (PSDP). The representatives of provinces, AJK and Gilgit Baltistan also attend the meeting.

The APCC would be followed by National Economic Council (NEC) and the Finance Division has set the first week of May as a tentative date for the meeting to be chaired either by the caretaker prime minister or the next elected Prime Minister and attended by the Chief Ministers of the provinces (or caretakers) for giving a final approval to a macroeconomic framework and the budget for next fiscal year.

Sources in the Finance Ministry have pointed out that the budget-making is a continuous process and it is prepared by bureaucracy as majority of budgetary component approvals are granted approvals at bureaucratic-level, which do not require any political intervention or approval.

The initial budget-making process, according to the official, begins in December each year with the issuance of budget circulars by the government. According to the official, the budget is prepared at two levels - bureaucratic level and political level. Sources have further contended that bureaucracy prepares 80 to 85 percent of the current expenditure component (including pays/privileges of civil and armed forces, departments’ expenditures and administrative expenses) of the federal budget by February to April each year and only 15% is available to political leadership to decide at the level of NEC.

The demands and grants of various departments and ministries of federal government are finalized by end of March or the first week of April every year after various rounds of priority committees meetings. Additional Secretary Finance usually chairs priority committee meetings to finalize the ceiling of various ministries and departments in consultation with their Principal Accounting Officers, according to sources.