PESHAWAR, June 12: Treasury benches in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Tuesday heaped praise on the government for presenting a balanced budget for the next fiscal, while the opposition members rejected the budget as unbalanced.
Resuming debate on the budget 2012-13 in the House, Pakistan People’s Party-Sherpao parliamentary leader Sikandar Khan Sherpao said the coalition government had failed to achieve budgetary targets fixed for the outgoing financial year.
He said 18th Amendment was passed with the aim to transfer powers from the centre to the provinces, which got maximum financial autonomy but the coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa could not make optimum use of the constitutional powers.
Mr Sherpao said the government had the target to collect Rs20 billion general sales tax during the outgoing financial year but missed the target and could make recovery of Rs8 billion only.
“In the new budget, the GST collection has been projected at Rs9 billion, which shows that the government has failed to build its capacity to improve tax recovery,” he said.
The PPP-S leader said despite delegation of powers under 18th Amendment, the provinces were still depending on the centre. He proposed that his province develop mechanism for GST recovery to end reliance on the federal government.
“This is very unfortunate that the provincial government is surrendering powers to the centre. The federal government is violating the Constitution by creating new ministries,” he said.
Mr Sherpao said after 18th Amendment, provinces should sit together and revisit National Finance Commission Award. He said he believed that the provinces’ share in NFC could increase 80 per cent after amendment to the Constitution.
Regarding allocations in the annual development programme, the PPP leader said the government spent huge funds on development projects, but economic and social indicators were very discouraging. He said the government should invest money in those projects which gave direct benefits to the people.
Like previous budgets, he said the new budget was also deficit one because the government had presented Rs29 billion parliamentary budget in the House and this trend was very dangerous for the province.
Mr Sherpao said the initial budgetary estimates were Rs86 billion, whereas revised estimates were Rs94.226 billion showing that the government over spent around Rs8 billion.
Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid MPA Nighat Orakzai had a heated exchange with the PML-N members causing a rumpus in the House.
MPA Saqibullah Khan Chamkani, who was chairing the session in absence of Speaker Kiramatullah Khan Chagharmatti, asked lawmakers to maintain decorum of the House otherwise he would adjourn the proceedings.
MPA Habibur Rehman Tanoli appreciated the new budget and said despite facing many challenges the government had presented a balanced budget. He proposed that the government set up separate department for oil and gas. He also said the money received on account of net hydel profit should be spent on hydel generation projects. He regretted that the government did not allocate funds in the budget for Hazara Expressway.
PML-N lawmaker Abdul Sattar Khan pointed out flaws in the development plans and said the government did not determine priorities in the budget. He said the government should plan ADP according to the requirements of every district, but in the new budget requirements of the districts had been ignored.
For example, he said the government had included tube wells for Kohistan, ignoring the fact that tube wells could not be installed in the district due to its terrain.