Ever since the federal government has presented the annual budget there has been a series of objections raised. Experts believed that the government will reduce its expenditure to support the economy but that has not been done which increased the burden on the masses.
The government is now making various claims to defend its budget, one of which is right-sizing and austerity policies in public institutions which is being discussed a lot in the mainstream media today and its biggest claimant is himself the Prime Minister is Shahbaz Sharif who has said that he will personally monitor the downsizing and right-sizing process of the public sector and will not tolerate any delay in this regard. According to reports Published in prominent newspapers in the Federal Cabinet the Prime Minister said that he will not allow any delay in the follow-up of the meetings and agreements held during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization by the relevant ministries.
He also emphasized on close cooperation between the federal and provincial governments to ensure law and order. While talking about the announcement of energy subsidy package for low income households the Prime Minister said that 50 billion rupees has been deducted from the development budget to provide relief for three months to consumers using up to 200 units.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister said that the Ministry of Finance has been instructed to prepare a business model while the implementation of measures to prevent corruption at Karachi Port.
The government portrays the above steps like that will reduced the burden on exchequer besides the media is promoting it very well but the outcome of these measures will be known after a year when the government will present its budget to the public.
If have a look at the practical steps that the government is making have been reversed, the increase in government expenditure this year it not appreciable at all.
According to newspaper reports Parliament has approved supplementary grants worth Rs 9.4 trillion to increase government spending which is almost five times higher than last year’s Rs 1.91 trillion, a 389 percent increase.
All the claims of taking austerity measures and cutting down on excessive government expenditure are clearly not true as documents released by the finance ministry show that almost 86 per cent increase in expenditure is expected in the fiscal year 2022-23 Recorded only in the last 45 days. The former PDM government which consisted mostly of the same parties those are still rules the country, so any attempt to blame only the interim authorities for that extraordinary extravagance will not be based on reality.
What is more disturbing is that the supplementary grant of 1.3 trillion rupees for the recently ended financial year is only till May 17, which means that the increase in spending for the last 45 days of FY 2023-24 is unannounced. It seems likely that this amount will be higher than the current level just revealed.
However a large part of this expenditure is due to the need for the government to borrow 6.55 trillion rupees to service the national debt and interest and more. A picture of Rs 214 billion spent on foreign debt repayments emerges across various sectors of the economy, energy, water resources divisions, defense services and civil armed forces among others exceeding budget allocations.
This trend of regularly increasing their budgets reflects that the principles of fiscal responsibility are ignored in the public sector.
The trend of reckless spending continues, best exemplified by the Prime Minister’s Office receiving two supplementary grants of Rs 81 million as stipends for its staff. Therefore, before making any further claims the government should reduce these expenditures first then the people will believe in these claims.
