Updated :
Saturday May 12 , 2012 10:45:11 AM
The federal budget 2012-13 would be presented on June 1 instead of the earlier announced date of May 25, Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Finance was informed.
The meeting of the Standing Committee was held at the Ministry of Finance with Fauzia Wahab in the Chair. Secretary Finance Abdul Wajid Rana and other members of the economic team including Chairman Federal Board of Revenue informed the committee about the delay in the budget for the forthcoming fiscal year without going into any reasons. Some members of the committee expressed serious concern over what they claimed was ignoring Parliament in the budget making process.
A member of the Committee maintained that the Foreign Ministry was supposed to take the Parliamentary Committees of both the houses into confidence two months prior to the announcement of the budget. The ultimate objective of this exercise of presenting the budget to the committee is to prepare the budget in consultation with elected representatives, which was not adhered to by the Finance Ministry.
The committee agreed to the proposal of some members that some more meetings of the committee should be held prior to announcement of budget. Subsequently it was agreed that two more meetings of the committee would be held in the following week, on Wednesday and Thursday.
In reply to a question, an official said that the special committee of the Cabinet would be held probably next week for approval of budget strategy paper and to give final shape to the budget. The budgetary measures would be taken in consultation with all the stakeholder ministries and would be targeted to resolve the energy crisis, provide relief to the poor and farm sector and create 100,000 jobs.
He said that guidelines to this effect were given by the Prime Minister and all the stakeholders would put their heads together to formulate a strategy in this regard.
The federal budget 2012-13 would be presented on June 1 instead of the earlier announced date of May 25, Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Finance was informed.
The meeting of the Standing Committee was held at the Ministry of Finance with Fauzia Wahab in the Chair. Secretary Finance Abdul Wajid Rana and other members of the economic team including Chairman Federal Board of Revenue informed the committee about the delay in the budget for the forthcoming fiscal year without going into any reasons. Some members of the committee expressed serious concern over what they claimed was ignoring Parliament in the budget making process.
A member of the Committee maintained that the Foreign Ministry was supposed to take the Parliamentary Committees of both the houses into confidence two months prior to the announcement of the budget. The ultimate objective of this exercise of presenting the budget to the committee is to prepare the budget in consultation with elected representatives, which was not adhered to by the Finance Ministry.
The committee agreed to the proposal of some members that some more meetings of the committee should be held prior to announcement of budget. Subsequently it was agreed that two more meetings of the committee would be held in the following week, on Wednesday and Thursday.
In reply to a question, an official said that the special committee of the Cabinet would be held probably next week for approval of budget strategy paper and to give final shape to the budget. The budgetary measures would be taken in consultation with all the stakeholder ministries and would be targeted to resolve the energy crisis, provide relief to the poor and farm sector and create 100,000 jobs.
He said that guidelines to this effect were given by the Prime Minister and all the stakeholders would put their heads together to formulate a strategy in this regard.
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