The annual ritual of budget making in Punjab seems to be limping along the path as the leadership and legislators of the coalition partners - the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) are preoccupied with ‘more urgent business’ of getting police and other officers of their choice posted in their districts.

Sources in the PPP and the PML_N tell Dawn that the top leaders of both the parties in the provincial assembly spent three days last week interviewing their legislators to select officers of their choosing for posting in their constituencies.

These meetings were held on the heels of massive transfers of key police and other officials done at the provincial and district level by the PML_N president and de facto chief minister of Punjab, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, during the last one month or so. “Its correct that the new government and the leadership is busy in administrative reshuffle, which is keeping its focus away from the budget making process to the detriment of provincial economy,” says a senior Punjab finance department official while talking to Dawn. Like most other provincial officers he also does not want to be identified.

“The economy and provincial finances do not appear on the priority list of the two coalition partners, at least not for the time being,” the official said.

Another official, who has remained involved in the budget making in the province in the recent years until his transfer, says: “The leaders and legislators should not be faulted for being too much focused on administrative affairs. These parties have returned to power after many and very long years in opposition and in certain cases political persecution. So they are trying to ensure to have officers who are not tainted with loyalties to the previous rulers.”

A PML_N legislator, who wished to remain anonymous, acknowledged that politics and administrative changes had caused the new government lose its focus on the economic and financial affairs in Punjab. But, he says, it was natural.

“We won vote in Punjab on the promise of reinstating judges deposed by (president Pervez) Musharraf under his proclamation of state of emergency on November 3 as army chief. Until that issue is settled, the party leadership is going to remain engaged with that.”

But he rejected the criticism that the provincial cabinet was too much obsessed with administrative changes rather than the preparation of budget for the next fiscal.

”We have a finance minister looking after the budget making process. So you cannot say that the new government is ignoring that important subject. Yet let me tell you one thing: it is not fair to expect radical changes in the next budget from a just one month old government.”

Some finance department officials insist that the government’s preoccupation with what they call as critical political matters and administrative reshuffle did not impinge much on the making of the budget for the next financial year.

”We are doing our calculations, finalising new development schemes and projects while waiting for the federal government to indicate resources for the next year (under the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award). As soon as we hear from Islamabad, we will give the budget documents and estimates final touches, “said a deputy secretary at the finance department.

He said the provincial budget was usually given final shape once the federal government had made its own calculations. “So it is not correct to suggest that time is running out for the new rulers of Punjab,” he adds.

An official associated with the preparation of annual development programme (ADP) tells this reporter that the government had actually conveyed its development priorities for some areas and the department was incorporating them in the next year’s plan.

“We shall continue to alter the programme in accordance with the aspirations of the new government till the printing of the documents. This is not a new practice. All the governments in the past have done so, and there is little likelihood of a change in future either, “he argues.

Another senior provincial planning department said in an informal chat that the next year’s development programme for the province was expected to remain much smaller than the current year’s estimated plan of Rs150 billion. This year’s development spending was cut by Rs18 billion in line with the federal government’s decision to reduce public sector expenditure on development to help the central bank tame the surging inflation.

“However, I expect that the actual development spending in the province during the outgoing year could be lower than the revised estimates of Rs132 billion when the final figures are compiled,” the planning department official says.

But he assures that no cut would be applied on the social sector budget “In certain areas, we are committed to the multilateral donors like the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank not to cut social sector, pro-poor expenditure,” he says.

He says it was not only the resource constraint that was making the province’s finance managers to keep the development plan for the next year smaller than the current year but also the lack of capacity to actually spend such hefty amount.

Truth may be inconvenient. But it is the fact that the PML previous government was a lot more focused on the economic planning and reforms, even though for political mileage. That also won it appreciation from the donors. Will the new ruling coalition be able to bring back that kind of focus on the provincial economy? That remains to be seen.