ISLAMABAD, June 16: The government came under more opposition flak on Friday as the National Assembly debated over Rs2.15 trillion worth of charged expenditure — on which it cannot vote — as part of the new federal budget. Most of the criticism was centred on household expenses of President Gen Pervez Musharraf and performance of the post office and railway departments while there were repeated demands to make the Election Commission independent and powerful to ensure free and fair elections.
The charged expenditure was presented in the assembly after a seven-day general budget debate that ended on Thursday night and will be followed by a discussion of demands for grants by different ministries and divisions, beginning on Saturday.
The house has received Rs217 billion worth supplementary demands for grants and appropriations, showing the expenditure made in access of the budget allocation for the outgoing fiscal 2005-06.
The largest single amount shown in the charged expenditure was more than Rs1.786 trillion for repayment of domestic debt, followed by Rs190.785 billion for servicing of domestic debt. Foreign loans repayment amounted to more than Rs56.335 billion and servicing of foreign debt to over Rs48.720 billion.
The charged expenditure for the staff, household and allowances of the president amounted at Rs290,224,000 and opposition members questioned justification of the spending, saying that Gen Musharraf’s basic job was that of the chief of the army staff.
NADRA EXCLUSION CHALLENGED: Earlier, several opposition members challenged — for the second time in four days — exclusion from the budget of a key federal department that the government says is self-sufficient and needs no allocations in the budget.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain reserved ruling after several members from both the opposition and ruling coalition joined voices against the absence of the National Database Registration Authority from the budget when the issue was raised by the People’s Party Parliamentarians’ Aitzaz Ahsan. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi and two ministers of state defended the procedure followed for two years.
PPP member Sherry Rehman had first pointed out what she called a ‘scandal’ on Tuesday but Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said Nadra was earning enough revenues to meet its expenses and was exempted by a 2002 ordinance — later passed by parliament — from coming to National Assembly for budgetary allocations.
The speaker asked PML’s Farooq Amjad Mir, who differed with the ministers, what would happen in a clash between the constitution and an act of parliament and got the reply that the constitution must prevail.
