Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Acting President Sadiq Sanjrani — who has assumed the role as President Arif Alvi went on Haj — approved the amended Finance Bill 2023-24 and the Elec-tions (Amendment) Bill 2023 on Monday.
A day ago, the said bills sailed through the National Assembly.
The Finance Bill was passed after the government had made several changes, including fis-cal tightening measures, dictated by the Internat¬ional Monetary Fund (IMF) in a last-ditch effort to secure critical funding.
The National Assembly had also passed the bill seeking an amendment to the Elections Act 2017, aimed at limiting the disqualification of lawmakers to five years with a retrospective effect. It also aims to empower the Election Commission of Pakistan to announce election dates unilaterally without having to consult the president. The bills were passed during a National Assembly session that lacked quorum, with only 70 lawmakers on the treasury benches and two on the opposition benches.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, his father and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, and Leader of the Opposition Raja Riaz were also absent
The NA had on Sunday approved the next fiscal year’s budget, which was revised a day ear-lier to meet International Monetary Fund conditions in a last-ditch attempt by the gov-ernment to secure much-needed bailout funds. Under the changes in the budget, the government now aims to generate another Rs215bn in taxes and cut spending by Rs85bn in the next fiscal year, without reducing the federal development budget or the salaries and pensions of government employees.
This revises the government’s revenue collection target to Rs9.415tr and put total spending at Rs14.48tr. The share of the provinces would be increased to Rs5.39tr from Rs5.28tr.
The allocation for the Benazir Income Support Programme has also been revised from Rs450bn to Rs466bn for FY24. Besides, the petroleum development levy will be raised from Rs50 to Rs60 per litre.
The changes in the budget came a day after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met IMF Man-aging Director Kristalina Georgieva on the sidelines of the Global Financing Summit in Paris.
The Fund’s ongoing loan programme agreed in 2019 is set to expire on June 30. Under the $6.5bn facility’s ninth review, negotiated earlier this year, the country has been trying to secure $1.1bn of funding stalled since November.
When Dar presented the budget on June 9, he announced new revenue measures of Rs223bn in addition to all taxes worth Rs500bn introduced in a mini-budget in mid-February. The sum of new tax measures for the coming fiscal year now stands at Rs938bn. The government hopes to achieve a 28 per cent higher revenue target for the next fiscal year based on the projected economic growth of 3.5pc, average inflation of 21pc and reve-nue measures.
The autonomous growth in revenue — to come from Gross Domestic Product growth and inflation — is projected at Rs1.76tr in the next fiscal year.
