PESHAWAR: The provincial cabinet of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa approved another budget estimate of Rs529 billion for the period of next four months of the financial year 2023-24 here on Thursday.
For this purpose, a special meeting of the provincial cabinet was held here with Caretaker Chief Minister Muhammad Azam Khan in the chair.
Sharing the details of the four-month budget of the provincial government, the Caretaker Provincial Minister for Information, Barrister Feroze Jamal Shah Kakakhel and Caretaker Minister For Finance, Ahmad Rasool Bangash said the budget estimates, approved for the period from November 1, 2023 to February 29, 2024, were 14 percent higher than the last four months while a sum of Rs112 billion had been set aside for development expenditure.
4 months of FY23-24: KP caretaker govt presents Rs462bn budget
They said that despite the financial difficulties in the province, a balanced budget had been presented in which the focus had been on continuation of the projects of public interest and keeping in mind the guiding principles of good governance.
The finance department has done an excellent job by preparing the budget proposals. The caretaker government is advancing the government financial management without any overdraft and debt.
They expressed their hope that the financial affairs of the province will improve further after receiving better support from the caretaker federal government. They said Caretaker Chief Minister Azam Khan and Chief Secretary had taken the financial problems of the province with the federal government on various occasions and were also brought in the notice of the Caretaker Prime Minister during his recent visit to the provincial capital.
He said there was an improvement in the financial affairs of the federation, which would have a positive effect on the province as well.
On this occasion, Caretaker Finance Minister Ahmed Rasool Bangash said the Law Department, in consultation with the Advocate General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had given its advice that in the extraordinary circumstances, the provincial government could present the budget for government affairs after October 31, 2023.
The government has taken the approval of the budget from the cabinet for another four months from November 1, 2023 to February 29, 2024.
He said that was in accordance with the decision related to Article 121, Article 122, and Article 126 and Supreme Court of Pakistan Regulation No. 1998.
Sharing the statistics of the budget, he said the focus was on providing essential services and promotion of economic development. 19 percent of the budget has been allocated to the health sector and 10 percent for police force to maintain law and order.
Recruitment and purchase of vehicles have been banned under frugality measures. Talking about the merger of districts, he said KP welcomed the merger of the federally administered tribal areas (Fata) into KP and accepted that responsibility and was always striving for the development of those districts.
“That the province needs attention in financial matters from the federation to remove the development inequality, at the time of merger, the federal government had promised to allocate 100 billion rupees annually to compensate for the stagnation of development affairs in the merged districts.”
Currently, six billion rupees in annual development programme (ADP) dues and 20 billion rupees in AIP dues are pending with the federal government.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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