A sub-committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Rules of Procedure and Privileges on Tuesday recommended changes in rules to make binding on the government to arrange a pre-budget discussion on the budget formation. The meeting of the committee was held under its convener Abdul Ghafoor Chaudhry and attended by Chaudhry Mahmood Bashir Virk, SA Iqbal Qadri and its mover Anusha Rehman Khan.
Additions sought
The meeting considered the proposal relating to addition of sub-rule (6) in rule 201 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly 2007 as moved by Anusha Rehman Khan. The addition sought was “the standing committee for particular ministry shall scrutinise, amend if thinks necessary the annual budgetary proposals comprising demands for grant, appropriations and development expenditures and a request for supplementary grant for the next fiscal year before the same are sent to ministry of finance for inclusion in the annual budget. Each ministry shall submit it’s budgetary proposals for the next fiscal year to it’s respective standing committee not later than March 31 of the preceding fiscal year and the standing committee shall duly consider and recommend the same for not later than May 15 of the preceding fiscal year. ”
Opportunity of involvement
Abdul Ghafoor Chaudhry observed that although parliament was considered supreme in budget making, but majority of the members were not given the opportunity to involve in the budget making process. Only few parliamentarians actually knew what was written in the budget books and majority discusses political issues during budget debate.
He recommended that a special pre-budget session of the national assembly should be convened in March or April for holding pre-budget debate so that all the political parties could give their suggestions before finalisation of the budget. The government should place its first budget strategy paper in the session to inform parliament about priorities of the government for the next fiscal year, so that they could contribute in prioritising the budget. He asked the officials of the finance ministry to explain the existing role of parliament in the budget making process.
Projections and targets
Briefing the sub-committee, Additional Secretary Budget Rana Assad Amin said the process of budget making starts from October. A macro-economic working group is formed and ministry of finance, planning commission, federal board of revenue (fbr), state bank of pakistan (sbp), and economic affairs division present their projections for next three to five years and set indicative macro-economic framework targets. Based on these targets and projections, a Budget Strategy Paper-I (BSP-I) is prepared and presented to the cabinet. Development and non-development budgets of the ministries and divisions are set in consultation with the secretaries of the ministries during a week-long meeting of the priorities committee. Later, BSP-I is presented before the standing committees of finance of the national assembly and senate for their input. Similarly, economic advisory council and revenue advisory council comprising public and private sector experts are consulted on the budget formation during March to June period.
Parliament empowered
He said during the last fiscal year the ministry of finance held meetings with government coalition partners and briefed them on budget formation. He said during the next fiscal year plans are to brief all the political parties in the parliament. He said there was no need to amend the rules as parliament already had the powers to scrutinise the budget. The convener of the committee was of the view that they wanted to make it binding on the government to take input from the parliament on the budget formation. Amin said the national assembly had adopted senate standing committee on finance recommendations that the parliament should be briefed on the budget priorities in March.
The convener of the committee was of the view that if the recommendations were adopted then there was no need for amendment in rules but if they were not completely adopted then the law division should propose changes in rules.