LAHORE: The Punjab government is indecisive whether it will present budget for the first three months of the next fiscal 2018-19 or restrain itself to seeking authorisation of revised budget for the current financial year.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah says the government will present the next financial year budget only if other provinces go for it.

However, finance minister Ayesha Ghous-Pasha says the government has prepared a complete 2018-19 budget but decided not to present it.

“The incumbent government will present the 2017-18 revised budget and seek approval for the supplementary budget,” she said. The caretaker government, she said, would seek authorisation of expenditure for next fiscal’s first four months from July 1 to Oct 31.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sindh government have decided not to give next year’s budget. The two parties also protested in the National Assembly against the PML-N government for presenting its sixth budget (at federal level), arguing that it had usurped the right of the next elected government to present budget and decide its direction.

Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah said all opposition parties were one over the issue and didn’t want the government to present budget beyond September this year.

Sources told Dawn that there was no bar on an elected government to present its sixth budget in its tenure but the good sense should prevail by allowing the next government to present its budget and take responsibility. In Punjab, sources said, the government would present its current fiscal revised budget estimates as well as supplementary budget to seek authorisation from the Assembly and taking responsibility of its whole tenure.

They said Articles 125 and 126 of the Constitution allow the incumbent government to present next fiscal’s first three months’ budget from July 1 to Sept 30. These articles allow the interim caretaker government to seek authorisation of expenditure for four months from July 1 to Oct 31.

Sources said the PML-N in Punjab wanted that the caretaker government be allowed to present budget for four months from July to October. In this context, the caretaker government (expected to be installed on June 1) will use incumbent government’s 12th month (June) budget and then adopt budget for the next four months.

The finance department officials said there was no official nod whether the incumbent government would seek authorisation of revised budget for the current financial year 2017-18 or present next three months’ budget in the Punjab Assembly.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2018