PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Meeting on Thursday handed a Rs1.456 trillion finances for the present fiscal yr.
Throughout a sitting chaired by Speaker Babar Saleem Swati right here, members of each treasury and opposition benches got here up with 66 reduce motions however all of them have been later withdrawn permitting the home to move the finances, together with the expenditure authorised by the final caretaker authorities.
The surplus budget was laid within the meeting on Might 10 by regulation minister Aftab Alam Khan Afridi a day after he was given the extra cost of the finance division.
A lot of the reduce motions have been offered by former speaker of the meeting Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani in regards to the expenditure by the departments of native authorities, public well being engineering, jails and convicts settlement, police, info expertise, income and property, excise, taxation and narcotics management, normal administration and planning and improvement, and Bureau of Statistics.
Treasury, opposition members withdraw 66 reduce motions
Mr Ghani questioned how he and different treasury members may approve the cash utilised towards PTI activists.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz member Sobia Shahid additionally offered reduce motions in the home.
Chief of the Opposition Dr Ibadullah mentioned although treasury members have been declaring the finances unconstitutional, it adhered to the constitutional provisions.
Presenting his reduce movement on the expenditure by the income division, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl member Mohammad Ijaz Khan mentioned the income division’s efficiency was simply “zero” and patwaris demanded bribe when individuals approached them for his or her reliable work.
He additionally complained that the income system hadn’t been computerised but regardless of repeated guarantees.
Sobia Shahid of the PML-N mentioned 22 per cent property tax needs to be lowered because it had destroyed the actual property enterprise within the province.
“Individuals can neither purchase nor promote properties because of the inflated tax price,” she mentioned.
Income minister Nazir Ahmad Abbasi claimed that the provincial authorities collected simply 6.5 per cent of the tax on sale and buy of properties, whereas the remainder of the 16.5 per cent went to the federal authorities.
The opposition members insisted that the home ought to undertake their reduce motions for expenditure by the well being and police departments.
Pakistan Peoples Get together member Ahmad Kundi mentioned the seventh Nationwide Finance Fee Award got here by way of a political consensus resulting in the approval of 1 per cent share for KP within the funds for struggle on terror.
He mentioned Rs91 billion was allotted for anti-terror struggle throughout the fiscal yr 2023-24.
“Legislation and order is the most important subject for KP. Failure to resolve it could possibly trigger a serious embarrassment for the federal government,” he mentioned.
Mr Kundi mentioned the police division’s improvement had by no means been a authorities precedence since 2010.
He complained that the police personnel in KP drew salaries far lower than these of their friends in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan provinces.
Meals minister Mohammad Zahir Shah mentioned the provincial authorities offered the police with tools of Rs7 billion.
He alleged embezzlement in police funds and procurement of “substandard” ammunition and bulletproof jackets for police throughout the ANP-PPP authorities from 2008 to 2013.
Mr Kundi questioned who was punished for the alleged corruption and anomalies.
“You have been a senior member of the PPP throughout these days. You individuals worry and can’t even switch a deputy commissioner,” he instructed the minister.
About her reduce motions on expenditure by the well being division, Ms Shahid mentioned individuals have been denied even first support in hospitals of the provincial capital.
She mentioned the federal government claimed to have declared a well being emergency to learn sufferers however the individuals continued to go to personal well being services as a result of public sector hospitals didn’t have medicines.
One other PML-N member, Mohammad Rashad Khan, complained {that a} well being centre in Bisham was in ruins however funds weren’t being launched for its rehabilitation.
He additionally alleged misuse of the Sehat Playing cards and urged authorities to verify it.
Well being minister Syed Qasim Ali Shah mentioned the medical health insurance programme moved on easily to learn residents of the province till the final caretaker authorities stopped releasing funds for it.
He added that medicines weren’t bought for the programme after August 2023.
“We [current government] offered medicines to public sector hospitals inside 20 days of our arrival on the helm and resumed the Sehat Card programme providing free remedy for many illnesses,” he mentioned.
The home additionally accredited all 66 calls for for grants earlier than the chair adjourned the session till right now (Friday) afternoon.
Printed in Daybreak, Might seventeenth, 2024