PESHAWAR, June 9: The NWFP government is expected to announce a raise in the pay and pension of public-sector employees in the provincial budget as per the ratio announced by the federal government in the national budget.

“The provincial government has worked out a pay and pension raise of at least 15 per cent, besides a teaching allowance in the next fiscal year as earlier announced by the federal government,” the provincial finance minister said at a pre-budget seminar on Saturday.

“This will consume Rs2.5 billion and Rs1 billion, respectively, in addition to the routine salary bill of the provincial government in the next fiscal year,” said Shah Raz Khan.

Fielding questions by journalists, the minister said he had asked the federal government to lend additional budgetary support to the province in view of the expected raise in the salaries and teaching allowance.

He, however, clarified that the provincial government would announce at least a 15 per cent raise in salaries in the budget.

The seminar was part of a consultative process launched by the provincial government to seek inputs from all segments of society, including the media, for making the forthcoming budget pro-poor.

NWFP Finance Secretary Zia-ur-Rehman and Special Secretary Aurangzeb Haq assisted the minister in identifying priorities of the MMA-led provincial government for the next financial year.

The finance minister said the next provincial budget would have a total outlay of more than Rs100 billion, besides an Annual Development Programme of Rs30 billion. He said the allocation for non-development expenditure in the next budget would be around Rs54 billion.

Describing the priorities for the next fiscal year, the minister said that no new tax would be imposed in the budget and due importance would be given to the social sector, particularly health, education, roads and water.

About the ADP, he said the MMA government would ensure that all under-construction projects were completed on schedule and that was why major funding would be given to all ongoing uplift schemes in the next financial year.

The minister conceded that the law and order situation had badly affected the tourism sector besides bedevilling overall investment climate in the province.

He claimed that the government would focus on all potential areas of economic growth like tourism, mineral and hydropower generation. But he failed to specify measures that the provincial government was likely to take in the next budget for exploiting such areas.

The minister refuted Wapda’s claim that the Warsak Dam was not owned by the NWFP, saying the assertion was aimed at weakening the provincial government’s stance on net hydel profits. “The issue of Warsak Dam’s royalty is already a settled matter because the judgment of the arbitration tribunal and even Wapda’s own records verify that the dam is located in settled areas of the NWFP and not in the tribal areas,” the minister said.

Finance Secretary Zia-ur-Rehman said the provincial government was pursuing a debt-retiring strategy, which was aimed at replacing the expensive federal debts with inexpensive loans.