ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet is expected to approve on Monday (today) supplementary grants for security expenditures and give the go-ahead for ‘voluntary separation’ of about 3,500 employees of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).

An ECC meeting has been called on Monday to take up a 10-point agenda, half of them are demands for grants for security-related expenditures. Adviser to the Prime minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh will preside over the meeting.

Informed sources told Dawn that requirements for supplementary grants for security expenditures had started to crop up within the second quarter of the current fiscal.

Officials said the Ministry of Defence had sought an allocation of technical supplementary grant for internal security duty allowance to the Pakistan Army. Another summary of the ministry seeks ‘additional allocation’ of technical supplementary grants for the second phase of fencing along the Pakistan-Iran border during the current fiscal.

Decision on ‘voluntary separation’ of 3,500 PIA employees likely

Another demand for allocation of technical supplementary grant for recurring cost of Special Security Division (North) of Pakistan Army would also come up for approval during the ECC meeting. A few days ago, a similar supplementary grant of Rs16.6bn was allowed for Special Security Division (South). These special divisions were raised a couple of years ago for special security for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

The fourth such request pertains to transfer of funds to the Ministry of Defence as a technical supplementary grant in the shape of logistic support for the maintenance of Cessna aircraft.

The Ministry of Interior has moved a summary for expenditure for payment to hire solicitors for pursuing cases in the United Kingdom.

Another budgetary allocation has been brought up before the ECC for provision of information communication technology services at the Prime Minister Office for the PM’s Kamyab Jawan Programme.

The flow of requests for supplementary grants at such an early stage of the fiscal puts a question mark on the integrity of the government’s budget making exercise and normally leads to missed budget targets and higher than committed fiscal deficit, thus the need for excessive borrowing and debt servicing cost.

The ECC will also consider the constitution of a committee on local manufacturing of SIM cards and smart cards in the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

The ECC is also expected to constitute another committee for export of mangoes and kinnow.

It is also expected to allocate natural gas from the Pakistan Petroleum Limited’s Bashar-X Field to a third party.

The meeting is also likely to approve the federal government’s cash support required by the PIA Corporation Limited for a voluntary separation scheme (VSS). The scheme would then go to the federal cabinet for endorsement before implementation.

The financial cost of the VSS for the PIA employees has been estimated at about Rs10 billion, according to an official. The plan was drawn on the advice of Dr Ishrat Hussain, the PM’s adviser on institutional reforms and austerity, he said.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2020