ISLAMABAD, Nov 30: The excess budget statement (EBS) has not been compiled after 1984-85 and the available record shows that Rs290 billion was spent without the approval of parliament, reveals the Auditor General (AG) of Pakistan.

He also objected to the tradition of a one-line defence budget that has been developed through an executive arrangement that predates the 1973 Constitution.

"This tradition needs to be reviewed in the context of requirements of budgetary disclosure before parliament under the constitution," he maintained. The AG did not agree with the government's procedure for processing supplementary and excess budget statements, including supplementary grants.

In its performance and governance series audit report of the ministry of finance, the copy of which was also obtained by Dawn he said the tradition of placing the supplementary budget before the National Assembly in a post-facto manner is contrary to the constitutional intention as the Constitution specifies that the same procedure should be followed for the supplementary and excess budgets as is followed for the annual budget.

Also the practice of making block provisions in the budget is not consistent with the level of budgetary disclosure adopted for other expenditure. "Audit could not verify the complete position of unauthorised expenditure from 1985-86 to 1989-90.

However, the available record of Rs290 billion for the period 1989-91 to 1999-2000 were identified as unauthorized spending that had not been approved by parliament since 1991," he said.

Parliamentary control over the public purse, the AG continued, is the cornerstone of a democratic system. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan prescribed the financial procedure to be adopted for spending public funds. It has clearly determined that the budget of the federal government shall be passed by the National Assembly. But an analysis of the budget and expenditure, however, reveals that the effective writ of parliament over the budget is constrained by a number of factors. "Audit is of the view that different factors have combined to constrain the empowerment of parliament in the area of control of the elected representatives over the public purse," the AG believed.

The underlying recommendation of the audit is to empower the political process and following of the five economic policy statements: mid-term budgetary statement is included in the annual budget statement (ABS), annual fiscal policy statement is included in the ABS, annual debt policy statement is included in the ABS, mid-term economic report by the end of February, and annual state of the economy report by the end of June.

"And this will improve fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability and upgrade the involvement of the parliament in budgetary, fiscal and debt related issues," the AG observed.

However, in its reply, the ministry of finance differed with the AG on many issues and said the Constitution of Pakistan provides for a full control of parliament over the public fund.