IN many democratic states, parliament exercises very little control over the preparation, presentation and passage of the national budget because the elected government has the prerogative.

This is most evident in Westminster's parliamentary history. Parliament has little control because the democratic government preparing the budget has to adhere to an inbuilt system of multiple checks, vigilance and professionalism.

There are legislative provisions to regulate official and parliamentary transactions so that safeguarding public money can be ensured. In New Zealand, for instance, the government inherits or possesses the legal authority to expend but the individual minister does not have the power to make payments out of the public fund without the prior or subsequent approval of parliament.

In Pakistan, as in many western parliaments, the national budget is presented in its draft form before its approval by parliament. But there are a number of deficiencies in the manner in which the process works in Pakistan.

The national budget in western parliaments attains finality after the completion of a complex and lengthy process comprised of budgetary estimates and review/report rounds. As the World Bank reports, legislators usually take between two and four months to review budgetary proposals before they are presented before most parliaments that are members of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development.

In the UK, a budget is prepared for three years. In the run-up, pre-budget, treasury and other select committee reports are published in October/November. A month later, in December, a consolidated fund bill covering two years is passed. Spring supplementary estimates for two years are approved by parliament in February while in March, debate is initiated on the government's main three-year estimates.

This debate continues until August. Parliament has to approve the appropriation bill by March 31 because the financial year starts in April; in the same month the finance bill is published. Passing through its second and third readings during May and June, the finance bill is moved to the House of Lords for formal consideration in July.

This procedure is by and large followed in almost all European parliaments. The variations are merely in the timing of considerations on the budget at its various stages. Since the presentation of the budget is not an event but a process, parliamentarians are less interested in the details of public spending, and tax proposals also attract a lower degree of criticism.

For this reason the finance bill in many parliaments is passed despite the presence of academic mistakes and errors. Of overarching importance, though, is control over spending. Violations in this regard incur heavy costs for the offenders. The review of the budget is multi-layered and a comprehensive process.

In India, for example, the government presents the annual financial statement consisting of expected three-year revenues and expenditures to the Lok Sabha in January. It is then submitted to 17 joint committees for review. These committees present their reports to parliament separately (though they are debarred from making any amendment in the government's proposed budget).

In Pakistan the standing committees are, under the rules of procedures, authorised to scrutinise the accounts of relevant ministries, divisions and autonomous bodies. This enables them to indirectly exercise their authority over resource allocation through budgetary grants. However, there is no instance in the country's history when these committees took the trouble to evaluate the proposed budgetary allocations before their submission to parliament.

Canada is a country where parliament would also pass the budget because its rejection is considered a vote of no-confidence against the government. The government publishes the main themes of fiscal and economic policies and updates in October while the budget is announced in February.

In practical fact, the details of 70 per cent of the government's expenditure were not given to parliament, which reduced its influence over public spending. In 1994, however, parliamentary reforms were incorporated as a result of which pre-budget consultations were made mandatory in order to ensure transparency and accountability.

In contrast to all these countries, the presentation of the budget in Pakistan is merely an event, not a process. It lacks an articulate system of checks, counter-checks, the scrutiny of proposed expenditures or collection of revenues and the paying off of liabilities, including loans. It is not that there are no rules for such procedures the constitution, rules of procedure and the conduct of business in parliament, rules of business 1973 and the modified system of financial rules all provide for comprehensive control on spending and scrutiny of accounts and public transaction.

The existing legal framework for a wide-ranging process of financial and social equilibrium envisages a mechanism for pre-budgetary preparations under stringent scrutiny. But this mechanism has, because of the frequent interventions in the democratic system, never been operative. Consequently our national budget is restricted to an event i.e. its presentation in the National Assembly. Pre- and post-budget checks remain dormant.

During the Musharraf era, the passage of the entire national budget — which consisted of over 4,000 figurative pages — by parliament took only 11 days on average. Since the PPP came into government the parliament has gradually been increasing the number of days for debate on the budget they may now go up to 25 to 29 days in the National Assembly.The number of days spent on the budget in the upper house has also been increased from seven to 15 days under the 18th Amendment. The chairman of the Senate is evolving a mechanism of pre- and post-budget scrutiny through committees, a system which is already operative in Sindh.

International bodies such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association envisaged benchmarks for the approval of all sorts of legislation, including the budget, giving legislators substantial time for prior scrutiny of the subject matter. Pakistan has evolved in recent years, but it has still far to go.

The writer works in the Pakistan Senate.

trusthem@gmail.com