Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, taking serious notice of incurring huge expenditures on account payments of pensions, has ordered a high-level inquiry.
He issued these directives while presiding over a meeting of three-year Budget Strategy, 2016-17 to 2020-21 here at the CM House on Thursday. The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, all the concerned officers of finance, planning & development and Sindh Revenue Board (SRB).
During the presentation, the chief minister was told that during the financial year of 2015-16 the payments of pension were recorded at Rs 52.8 billion and it went up to Rs 70 billion in 2016-17 and again increased up to Rs 76 billion in 2017-18.
On this, the chief minister said that the amount being spent on payments of pension was quite huge and seemed to be dubious. Murad Ali Shah directed his Principal Secretary Sohail Rajput to initiate a high-power inquiry and constitute an audit committee to investigate into the payments. “The audit and inquiry should be started from the districts where huge payments have been made,” he said. He added that the audit must be made in a most professional and transparent manner. “You can hire the services of any professional auditor, if you need,” he allowed his principal secretary.
The CM also directed the Finance Department to computerise the entire pension system, along with the payments and number of pensioners. “There should be proper software for pensioners,” he said.
The CM was told that in 2015-16 the development expenditures were Rs 137.3 billion, in 2016-16 Rs 210.1 billion and in 2017-18 Rs 344.1 billion.
The meeting was told that that during the last three years the revenue receipts have shown an increase of 8.9 per cent while the next year an increase of 14 per cent was expected. During 2015-16, Rs 650.9 billion were received, in 2016-17 Rs 692.9 billion and in 2017-18 Rs 854.3 billion were expected to be received.
Murad Ali Shah was also informed that straight transfer from the federal government was Rs 518 billion in 2015-16, Rs 539.9 billion in 2016-17, Rs 654.6 billion in 2017-18. The provincial government expected that in 2018-19 it would be around Rs 743.1 billion, in 2019-20 Rs 845.4 billion and in 2020-21 Rs 933.4 billion were expected. The chief minister directed his finance and planning & development team to make budget strategy, particularly of development as per projected figures.
It was also pointed out that under the head of services on Sales Tax Rs 61.5 billion were received in 2015-16, Rs 78.5 billion in 2016-17 and Rs 100 billion were expected in 2017-18 and in 2018-19 it would be more than Rs 115 billion.