PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Thursday passed a Rs1.456 trillion budget for the current fiscal year.

During a sitting chaired by Speaker Babar Saleem Swati here, members of both treasury and opposition benches came up with 66 cut motions but they all were later withdrawn allowing the house to pass the budget, including the expenditure authorised by the last caretaker government.

The surplus budget was laid in the assembly on May 10 by law minister Aftab Alam Khan Afridi a day after he was given the additional charge of the finance department.

Most of the cut motions were presented by former speaker of the assembly Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani about the expenditure by the departments of local government, public health engineering, jails and convicts settlement, police, information technology, revenue and estate, excise, taxation and narcotics control, general administration and planning and development, and Bureau of Statistics.

Treasury, opposition members withdraw 66 cut motions

Mr Ghani wondered how he and other treasury members could approve the money utilised against PTI activists.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz member Sobia Shahid also presented cut motions in the house.

Leader of the Opposition Dr Ibadullah said though treasury members were declaring the budget unconstitutional, it adhered to the constitutional provisions.

Presenting his cut motion on the expenditure by the revenue department, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl member Mohammad Ijaz Khan said the revenue department’s performance was just “zero” and patwaris demanded bribe when people approached them for their legitimate work.

He also complained that the revenue system hadn’t been computerised yet despite repeated promises.

Sobia Shahid of the PML-N said 22 per cent property tax should be reduced as it had destroyed the real estate business in the province.

“People can neither buy nor sell properties due to the inflated tax rate,” she said.

Revenue minister Nazir Ahmad Abbasi claimed that the provincial government collected just 6.5 per cent of the tax on sale and purchase of properties, while the rest of the 16.5 per cent went to the federal government.

The opposition members insisted that the house should adopt their cut motions for expenditure by the health and police departments.

Pakistan Peoples Party member Ahmad Kundi said the 7th National Finance Commission Award came through a political consensus leading to the approval of one per cent share for KP in the funds for war on terror.

He said Rs91 billion was allocated for anti-terror war during the fiscal year 2023-24.

“Law and order is the biggest issue for KP. Failure to resolve it can cause a major embarrassment for the government,” he said.

Mr Kundi said the police department’s development had never been a government priority since 2010.

He complained that the police personnel in KP drew salaries far less than those of their peers in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan provinces.

Food minister Mohammad Zahir Shah said the provincial government provided the police with equipment of Rs7 billion.

He alleged embezzlement in police funds and procurement of “substandard” ammunition and bulletproof jackets for police during the ANP-PPP government from 2008 to 2013.

Mr Kundi wondered who was punished for the alleged corruption and anomalies.

“You were a senior member of the PPP during those days. You people fear and cannot even transfer a deputy commissioner,” he told the minister.

About her cut motions on expenditure by the health department, Ms Shahid said people were denied even first aid in hospitals of the provincial capital.

She said the government claimed to have declared a health emergency to benefit patients but the people continued to visit private health facilities because public sector hospitals didn’t have medicines.

Another PML-N member, Mohammad Rashad Khan, complained that a health centre in Bisham was in ruins but funds were not being released for its rehabilitation.

He also alleged misuse of the Sehat Cards and urged authorities to check it.

Health minister Syed Qasim Ali Shah said the health insurance programme moved on smoothly to benefit residents of the province until the last caretaker government stopped releasing funds for it.

He added that medicines were not purchased for the programme after August 2023.

“We [current government] provided medicines to public sector hospitals within 20 days of our arrival at the helm and resumed the Sehat Card programme offering free treatment for most diseases,” he said.

The house also approved all 66 demands for grants before the chair adjourned the session until today (Friday) afternoon.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2024