If the austerity measures were across-the-board, even the bristling middle-income groups would bow down to necessity and prudence. However, taxpayers are footing the bill for frivolous expenses of all government arms

Take the administrative services expense of the prime minister’s office, for example. The key performance indicator for the nearly Rs1bn expense is implementing the prime minister’s directives and timely executing his decisions. Since the respective ministries execute the decisions, what would the expense comprise beyond the normal maintenance of a lavish office?

Similarly, about Rs500m are allocated for travel of the president’s secretariat — that amounts to about 1,000 round trips from Karachi to London and back. Interestingly, the amount allocated for FY25 is over 400pc more than the actual expenditure in FY23, which begs the question: Why is the president’s office’s travel increasing so tremendously when we are struggling to pay electricity bills?

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, July 8th, 2024