Minister for Information and Broadcasting Arif Nizami on Monday said the federal budget for the next financial year was likely to be announced by the first week of the coming month.
He made these comments after attending the concluding session of one-day seminar titled “Creating Joint Social Media Policy for all Government Departments”. The seminar was jointly organised by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Global Strategies.
Responding to questions, Nizami said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, who was likely to form the coming government, would appoint its own finance minister, adding that PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar was likely to be the next finance minister of the country.
He said Dar was engaged in preparing the budgetary proposals at present for bringing relief to the people.
The minister was of the view that Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who is likely to be the minister for water and power, was preparing plans for overcoming power load shedding with assistance from a team of experts.
The minister was of the view that the caretaker government should also seek input from this team to mitigate sufferings of the people.
Nizami said apart from the demand and supply gap and shortfall of electricity across the country, the inability of the Finance Ministry to release funds to ensure uninterrupted supply of fuel to power plants was also a factor for the power crisis.
To a question in connection with postings and transfers, the information minister said he personally believed that these were justified before elections, but there was no room for them now.
However, he said he would not say more as the matter was sub judice.
To another query, Nizami said it was prerogative of the president to convene session of the new assembly. He said he saw no justification for any delay in convening of the session when the Election Commission officially notified the results.
He said as far as the caretaker government was concerned, it would not remain in power even a day longer than necessary.
Addressing the event earlier, Nizami underlined the need for benefiting from social media.
“The social media can be utilised to resolve the problems being faced by the health and education sectors, as the emerging social media is extremely powerful.”
“Print and the electronic media still have more credibility than the social media and are propagating smoothly in the country.”
To a question regarding the statement of Altaf Hussian from London, the information minister said he personally believed that notice should be taken against the statement.
He said other stakeholders, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, were also expressing their reservation about the statement.
