February 22, 2007	Thursday	Safar 4, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Riaz Fatiana, has said this year’s budget is likely to be presented in March.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Fatiana said the finance ministry had agreed after the standing committee for parliamentary affairs took the decision in this regard in its latest meeting. He had already signed the minutes confirming the committee’s suggestion. He would now send the proposal to the president, prime minister and National Assembly speaker.

As a normal feature the budget is presented in the National Assembly in June, ahead of the financial year which begins on July 1. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) also looks into the audited accounts later.

Mr Fatiana, who is also on the PAC, felt that the audit statements of previous years were considered in the accounts committee meetings, a few years after the expenditure had been incurred. “But we must improve the situation and review the budget when it was being implemented.”

“Now we intend to take revolutionary steps in answering the needs of the public and making the budget ‘people friendly’ as document of good governance,” the standing committee chairman said while mentioning some steps arising out of the budget discussion in the Senate.

The finance ministry has promised to send expenditure figures of the last six months to each standing committee in the Senate and National Assembly.

Mr Fatiana said each ministry was released one quarter of the budgeted amount at the beginning of the financial year. If they could not draw up PCI documents and get approval of the expenditure for development projects within this period it means they were not performing well and the standing committees would take note of this fact that a government department did not have the capacity to utilise the amount.

From this hindsight available to the standing committee they would be able to conclude what the budget demand of a particular ministry should be for the coming year.