PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa caretaker government will allocate Rs198 billion to meet the province’s development and current expenditure from July to October.

This was decided during a meeting chaired caretaker chief minister retired Justice Dost Mohammad Khan here on Friday.

The participants agreed on the presentation of the administrative budget for the next four months before the interim cabinet after Eidul Fitr holidays.

July-Oct administrative budget to be presented in cabinet after Eid

The chief minister has yet to name its cabinet’s members.

The last PTI-led government kept changing its mind about the unveiling of the next provincial budget at the fag-end of its five-year term before finally deciding about not to present it in light of a thin majority in the provincial assembly.

The caretaker chief minister also agreed on the grant of 10 percent increase in pay and pension to the provincial government’s employees as announced by the federal government.

The expenditure estimates for the four months show that the finance department will earmark Rs145 billion for current expenditure, which is 10 per cent more than the current fiscal’s such allocations.

Of that, Rs83 billion will go towards meeting salaries of the provincial government workforce, while non-salary component will add another Rs61 billion.

The finance department has proposed to Rs53 billion to meet development expenditure and of this Rs24 billion would have been allocated for provincial component of the ADP, while Rs9.8 billion would be allocated to districts governments all over the province and Rs18.9 in lieu of the foreign funded projects.

Officials told Dawn that earlier the finance department had left the decision on whether to include extending 10 per cent salary and pension raise in administrative budget to the caretaker chief minister, who decided that it should be made part of the expenditure authorisation.

The official said retired Justice Dost directed both the finance and planning and development departments to start work on the four months budget and annual development programme component.

He said it was not for the first time that the KP government was authorising expenditure as in 1988, the then caretaker government had done so besides approving expenditure for the July-October period.

The official said Section 126 of the Constitution allowed the authorisation of expenditure after the dissolution of the provincial assembly.

“Notwithstanding anything contained in the foregoing provisions relating to financial matters, at any time when the Provincial Assembly stands dissolved, the Provincial Government may authorise expenditure from the Provincial Consolidated Fund in respect of the estimated expenditure for a period not exceeding four months in any financial year, pending completion of the procedure prescribed in Article 122 for the voting of grants and the authentication of the schedule of authorised expenditure in accordance with the provisions of Article 123 in relation to the expenditure,” it reads.

The details available with Dawn show that the finance department has pitched the provincial budget for 2018-19 at Rs598 billion compared to current fiscal’s Rs603 billion.

The current budget has been projected at Rs439 billion, while the development programme’s outlay has been pitched at Rs159 billion with a provincial component of Rs73 billion.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2018