Finance Ministry Contradicts News Item About Prime Minister Office Allocated Budget

The Ministry of Finance Wednesday contradicted a news item appearing in an English daily regarding proposed allocation made for the Prime Minister Office in the fiscal budget 2019-20, saying it carried twisting and erroneous figures

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Jun, 2019 ) :The Ministry of Finance Wednesday contradicted a news item appearing in an English daily regarding proposed allocation made for the Prime Minister Office in the fiscal budget 2019-20, saying it carried twisting and erroneous figures.

It clarified that the allocation earmarked for the PM Office in the fiscal budget 2019-20 stood at around Rs 860. 28 million.

The misleading news item, the ministry, had attributed Rs1.17 billion amount as allocation made to the PM Office in the fiscal budget, showing a proposed increase of 19 per cent. A wrong impression was created by adding allocated budget amounts of other departments with the total amount set aside for the PM Office which amounted to making mockery of the government's austerity drive.

According to finance ministry, the budget for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) had been allocated around Rs 309 million and that amount was wrongly added to the total budget amount allocated for the PM Office.

It said for further clarification, the budget book (part 1 current expenditures) at page no: 302 to page no: 310 could be consulted whereas its pages no: 303 to 308 contained the exact figures about the PM Office. Pages from 308 to 309 had the details about the NDMA budget.

The ministry advised against creation of disinformation over the total proposed allocated budget for the PM Office.

The NDMA was a subordinate office which had separate allocation.

It further clarified that during the fiscal budget 2018-19, the PM Office was allocated Rs 1.11 billion but due to Prime Minister's austerity drive, the Office had only utilized Rs 750 million out of the allocated amount, thus saving 32 per cent in the total expenditures in the current fiscal year.

The PM Office was allocated a budget of Rs 860. 28 million in the fiscal year 2019-20, which showed a reduction of 13 per cent as compared to allocation made in the last fiscal year.

When compared with the fiscal year 2014-15, the current allocation had been the lowest one. For the first time in the country's history, a prime minister had done away with his discretionary powers by ending the discretionary funds of the PM Office, which stood at around Rs 60 million.

For the next fiscal year, the current expenditures of the Federal government had been reduced to Rs 431 billion from Rs 480 billion whereas the other precedent was freezing of the defence budget which was unmatched.

The ministry maintained that the expenditures of the PM Office had no relation with the person of prime minister as he himself was bearing all his personal expenditures.