ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Planning decides to approach the chairman of the upper house of parliament to lodge a complaint that its budget proposals are being ignored by the bureaucracy.

A meeting of the committee presided over by Senator Agha Shahzaib Khan Durrani noted that various proposals forwarded by it over the past several years had been constantly ignored by the government functionaries.

Senator Talha Mehmood said that he had put forward several development schemes since 2010 but they were never taken up. Senators Shibli Faraz and Usman Kakar agreed with Mr Mehmood and said that only the bureaucracy was managing the development budget and there was no input from parliamentarians.

“We need to have an internal meeting first and discuss the issue with the Senate chairman to resolve the issue,” Mr Durrani said.

The committee members noted that it was not binding on the National Assembly to consider the recommendations of the upper house while approving the budget.

Later, an official of the Planning Commission informed the media about Article 73(1A) of the Constitution. The article states: “The National Assembly shall, consider the recommendations of the Senate and after the bill has been passed by the Assembly with or without incorporating the recommendations of the Senate, it shall be presented to the President for assent.”

The committee also witnessed a heated debate over allocation of Rs24 billion for Fata against the recommendations of development projects worth Rs40bn and the Senators highlighted that it was against the core idea of Fata reforms.

Senator Sajjad Turi said: “Rs1 trillion has been agreed for Fata reforms for the next 10 years, but only Rs10bn has been allocated in this regard.

Besides, there is no mention of uplifting the international highway going to Afghanistan. There is only one airport in Fata and it has been closed for more than a decade. Why is there no money for it in this budget?”

The committee decided to hold a separate meeting on Fata development projects and directed the planning secretary to attend the next meeting to explain who was taking the decisions over accepting or dropping the development projects?

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2018