THE term of the incumbent government ends on May 31. It will be replaced by an interim set-up for three months for holding the general elections.

Pakistan’s fiscal year begins on first of July. It was for this reason that the next year’s budget will be prepared and announced by the incumbent PML-N government well before its term comes to an end. The federal budget for the next financial year will be announced on April 27 so that all the provinces could also do so within the time limit.

Prime minister’s Adviser on Finance and Economic Affairs Dr Miftah Ismail told Dawn (March 15) that the last budget of the present government won’t be ‘politically motivated’ to win votes, as has been the practice in the past. He said it would be “technocratic” as far as its contours and directions were concerned.

The common man, particularly the salaried one, has always been the most affected one, because of inflation. The adviser did hint at increasing the salaries and pensions of government employees to absorb inflationary impact, but conditioned it with ‘depending on the fiscal space’.

The fiscal space could be created through heavy taxation on luxuries and by reducing the budgetary allocations for non-development expenditures and for certain ‘entities’ of lesser significance and/or utility.

Fatima Siddiqui

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2018