ISLAMABAD, March 3: Parliamentarians need to develop a high degree of understanding of the budget-making process as they are directly accountable to the masses and responsible for the justified spending of public money. These views were expressed by speakers at a workshop here on Thursday. They asked members of the parliamentary committee to review the proposed budget in more details and also improve their knowledge about budget process.

The workshop ‘How to review budget and demands for grants,’ was organised by PILDAT. The speakers said with the growth of media and political developments, public expectations had also increased.

It was highlighted that the masses demanded higher degree of transparency in the budget-making process to avoid hidden taxation or announced decisions and for that the role of parliamentarians had increased.

Nauman Ishtiaq, a financial expert, briefed the participants about how budget was presented and how should it be reviewed.

He said according to the constitution, the annual budget statement and demand for grants and appropriations were most important documents. He said this year a document, federal Medium term budget estimated for service delivery 2010-13, was presented to the parliament which should be studied by the members of parliamentary committees concerned.

“It is important to know that what is overall deficit and how much and from where we will get loan to overcome it,” Mr Ishtiaq said.

The parliamentarians were informed that budget can be reviewed by two ways. One is to access needs of any ministry or division and the second is to access government priorities and then access the need according to it.

PML-N MNA Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who presided over the session, said additional revenue generation was necessary for survival of the government. He said domestic debt had reached an unbearable stage. “Technically, the government is bankrupt and there is a need to devise measures for containing expenditures and generating more revenues,” Mr Abbasi said.

He criticised the tradition of cutting the development expenditures by successive governments during financial crises.