KARACHI: The Sindh government on Friday announced that it is set to launch the World Bank-supported Medium Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) and Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Management Legislation (FRDML).
The announcement was made during a joint meeting of the World Bank experts and the finance department team chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.
The World Bank was represented by Economist Mehwish Ashraf, Led Economics Fernando Blanco and Consultant Ariel Melamud while the finance department’s five-member team was led by Secretary Finance Najam Shah.
Following this, the Sindh CM said that “the objective to strengthen Sindh’s fiscal planning through preparation of MTFF was to support budget preparation and improve resource allocation”.
“The adoption of fiscal responsibility and debt management legislation would enhance credibility and predictability of the fiscal policy,” he added.
The WB economists said, “MTFF was an instrument to fiscal planning which would facilitate a more effective resource allocation as it was a tool that integrates policy of objectives with public resources allocation decisions under a multi-year framework.”
Finance Secretary Najam Shah said, “MTFF would improve the consistency of resource availability, expenditure needs, resource allocations and medium term fiscal restrictions.”
“The finance department, under the guidelines of the chief minister, had prepared a framework in consultation with the WB experts,” he added.
He further informed the Sindh CM that his team was examining “the existing rules and would suggest necessary legislation to launch MFF and fiscal responsibility and debt management”.
CM Murad, in response, said that his objective was to introduce fiscal policy under which non-development expenditures could be controlled by creating more fiscal space for the social sector.