ISLAMABAD: Despite the government’s claims of having kept a tight control on current expenditures, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar will be seeking ex post facto approval of parliament for Rs310.5 billion in supplementary grants for expenditure overruns and re-appropriations, sometimes for extravagant expenses.

According to the budget documents placed before parliament, the finance minister has sought the appropriation of Rs310.5bn through supplementary grants, some of them of a technical nature. But at least Rs121bn worth of expenditure overruns would be an additional burden on the budget.

Parliament is required to approve these expenditures as a fait accompli because the amount is considered to have been already spent.

A cursory look at the budget documents placed before the National Assembly suggests that some of these additional burdens pertained to discretionary dole outs by the prime minister, his publicity, purchase of luxury vehicles for top functionaries, the refurbishment of accommodations for judges and unexplained expenses of intelligence agencies.

Expenses include Rs121bn in overruns, Rs185bn in reappropriations

The figure of Rs310.5bn in supplementary grants is about 19pc higher than last year’s Rs261bn. Documents suggest that supplementary grants worth around Rs185bn were for re-appropriations — the shifting of funds from one head to another having no additional impact on the budget.

The ministry of finance, in its written statement, said that regular supplementary grants were meant “to provide for expenditure for purposes that were not foreseen at the time of finalisation of demands for grants. Such supplementary grants put additional burden on the budget”. Strangely, the ministry could not foresee a massive expenditure of Rs121bn only 11 months ago.

Most of these supplementary grants are described as ‘charged expenditure’ out of the federal consolidated fund, which is presented to parliament just for its information and taken as approved without voting. Simply put, parliament cannot reject it because the amount has already been consumed.

For example, despite repeated claims of a reduction in subsidies, the government actually exceeded allocations for subsidies by around Rs12bn, which has now been charged in the budget. Another Rs63bn had been paid, unapproved, as repayments for foreign loans and Rs41bn were spent on ‘other’ expenditures.

A closer look at the remaining Rs61bn in supplementary grants suggests that extravagant expenses were made, despite the presence of an austerity policy.

For example, an amount of Rs1.6bn was spent on the purchase of special security equipment, including Rs140 million for the security of the president. An additional Rs154m was spent by the prime minister on discretionary grants, payment of honoraria and assistance packages for a few families of employees who died in service.

An amount of Rs417m was given to lawyers on account of international arbitration case.

Around Rs455m was spend on the purchase of 35 high security vehicles, Rs97m for holding the 19th Saarc summit in Islamabad and Rs110m for a media campaign in Afghanistan and an international campaign for Pakistan’s candidates to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Human Rights Council.

The prime minister’s publicity campaign for health schemes cost the national kitty Rs1.2bn, while Rs525m was doled out to various sports federations.

An additional amount of Rs195 million was spent on the repair of judges’ residences, rest houses and sub-offices as well as the apex court building. A sizable amount of Rs3bn was given to the Trading Corporation of Pakistan for gifting rice to Cuba, China and Sri Lanka. One Shahbaz Latif Mirza was paid Rs1.1m to attend negotiations in Switzerland.

About Rs12.3bn was paid, unapproved, to provide for contractual payments for the JF-17 Thunder (Rs9 billion), wheat and flour export subsidy (Rs1.6 billion), and to sugar millers for sugar export (Rs1.6 billion). The government also paid Rs4.3 billion as a contribution to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Rs1.13 billion to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Rs5.3 billion to the WHO.

A critical amount of Rs31 billion was made available in the middle of the fiscal year for raising a special security division for the security of Chinese nations working on various projects (Rs10 billion), besides other capacity-building activities for the army (Rs11 billion), and an internal security duty allowance of Rs5 billion, among others.

Separately, Rs19 billion were spent on the capacity enhancement of civil armed forces at the western border. Another Rs2.7 billion was spent on the capacity-building of Pakistan Rangers in Sindh and Punjab.

An amount of Rs18.5 billion was re-appropriated for the population census, while Rs25 billion was given as a subsidy to fertiliser importers under the PM’s package. The legal firm of Allen & Overy was paid Rs378 and Rs408 million for fighting international arbitration cases for the Kishanganga and Rattle Hydropower projects against India.

An amount of Rs22.5 billion was provided for prime minister’s development schemes for parliamentarians, Rs1 billion for the PM’s education reforms — including the involving renovation of 200 educational institutions in Islamabad, Rs2.2 billion for the PM’s Youth Skill Development Scheme, Rs436 million for the PM’s interest-free loans, youth business loans etc and Rs3.7 billion for the PM’s Youth Training and PM’s special schemes for Muzaffargarh. Another Rs6.6 billion was paid as monthly cash assistance to verified displaced persons from Waziristan.

For pay and allowances of the National Commission for Human Development, Rs620 million was provided, while another Rs2.1 billion was spent on three helicopter engines for emergency relief.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2017