LAHORE: Punjab Caretaker Chief Minister Dr Hasan Askari on Thursday lauded the efforts of Provincial Minister for Law and Finance Zia Haider Rizvi and his team for taking solid measures to maintain financial discipline in the province.
Speaking during a meeting with the finance minister, who called on him here, the chief minister appreciated different austerity measures taken by the Finance department for saving of resources.
He said that timely and purposeful utilisation of resources helped to solve the problems of the people, adding that fiscal discipline was imperative for every government. “That is why the caretaker government has overcome the wastage of resources and effective guidelines have been issued with regard to funds utilisation by the Finance department,” he said.
The chief minister said that ban on unnecessary expenditures by the caretaker government would leave positive impacts and further resources would be available for improving healthcare, education and other social sectors for the upcoming government.
He said that resources should further be enhanced for the provision of different facilities to the masses and added that this would help in fulfilling the expectations of the people towards the administration.
“It is the fundamental responsibility of every government to devise an effective mechanism for solving the day-to-day problems of the people and required resources should also be allocated in this regard. There is a dire need to work in a professional manner with innovative ideas to meet the emerging challenges,” he said.
CM Askari also said that the promotion of norms of simplicity and austerity at the government level would help overcome unnecessary expenditures. “It would further enhance resources that could be used for providing basic needs to the people.”
“Governments should work in a proactive manner to achieve this goal,” he said, adding that decrease in non-development expenditures was in the better interests of the people and the caretaker government had set an example for the upcoming government by decreasing such expenditures.
Earlier, Zia Haider Rizvi, at the occasion, apprised the chief minister about the performance of the law and finance departments and said that unnecessary expenditures of different departments had been decreased by following a strict financial discipline.
“Similarly, a saving of around Rs40 million has been made by cutting down the monthly expenditures of the chief minister’s office,” he said.
