When it comes to ensuring that the annual budget accurately reflects the true ambitions and priorities of the general public in Pakistan, the position that parliament has taken on in recent years has become more comical, and this time of year serves as a constant reminder of this fact.
This responsibility of parliament is extremely crucial due to the fact that the yearly budget statement is perhaps the most significant policy document produced by the government.
It explains the government’s strategy for mobilizing resources, which includes taxation, and the allocation of those resources to various sectors, such as defense, internal security, communication, human resource development, telecommunications, and social welfare schemes, including safety nets and subsidies for underprivileged sections.
It goes against the idea of the legislative power of the purse, which is generally acknowledged as being widely accepted, to reduce or dilute the authority of the elected representatives in parliament to affect the budget after they have thoroughly comprehended and debated it.
Within the context of a federal state such as Pakistan, this principle is applicable to the province assemblies to the same extent that it is applicable to the national parliament.
In general, the manner in which the national parliament and provincial legislatures go about enacting yearly budget statements gives the appearance that they are only carrying out a formality. This is true for both the national parliament and the provincial assemblies.
The procedure for creating the budget should allow adequate opportunities for the elected representatives in parliament in Islamabad and the provinces to read, analyze, debate, and, if necessary, change the budget that was presented by the government.
It is true that in a parliamentary form of government, the top tier of the executive, such as the cabinet, is also made up of elected representatives, and these representatives give their approval to the budget statement before it is presented before parliament.
On the other hand, the influence of the unelected bureaucracy, both locally and internationally, plays a preponderant role in selecting which aspects of the text are the most important, and this is particularly the case in developing countries with limited resources, such as Pakistan.
Recently, this impact has reached such a level that being able to cope with it has become the most significant qualification for the position of finance minister in the country.
The Pakistani budget speech seldom touches on the budget itself: Parliament’s limited influence in the budgeting process may be traced back to Article 84 (supplementary and surplus grants) of the Constitution. This provision allows the executive branch to make changes to nearly any budgeted expenditure at any time throughout the fiscal year, without consulting or obtaining permission from parliament, Pakistan is one of just two nations having such a clause in their constitution.
Despite the many obstacles that have been placed in the path of actual parliamentary effectiveness in the budget process, two major developments over the past decade have leaned towards improving the budget process in general and the parliamentary influence on the budget in particular.
The Public Sector Development Program is the most important element of the budget statement, and for the first time ever, thanks to a change in the National Assembly Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in 2013, the assembly’s standing committees have a way in to influence it.
Under the new guidelines, each year the federal ministries were required to consult with their corresponding National Assembly standing committee and include their suggestions into the PSDP.
If a committee’s suggestions could not be integrated into the PSDP for whatever reason, the ministries were also obligated to tell the committees.The PPP, under the leadership of Nadeem Afzal Chan, chairman, Rules and Privileges Committee, and Minister for Commerce Syed Naveed Qamar, and the PML-N, under the leadership of Anusha Rehman Khan and Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir Khan, worked together to amend the rules, marking a significant milestone in strengthening parliament’s role in the budget process.
Examining how well the groundbreaking amendment has been implemented a decade after its adoption is important, Whether or not each standing committee was briefed by the relevant ministry and whether or not the standing committees regularly convened their meetings to deliberate on the PSDP proposals initiated by the ministries is important information to have.
Unfortunately, neither such study is conducted by the assembly secretariat nor is it encouraged by civil society, The Finance Ministry is now able to inform the National Assembly and Senate Standing Committees on Finance on the government’s budget strategy document and solicit their feedback on how to best structure the annual budget statement thanks to the 2019 adoption of the Public Finances Management Act. However, how much this consultation method has improved the budgeting procedure is unclear.
The contribution of legislators throughout the budget process leaves much to be desired, despite the fact that there are fundamental impediments to an effective parliamentary role in the budget process.Less than half of assembly members participated in the budget discussion, and their speeches lasted on average approximately 19 minutes apiece, according to a Pildat analysis of the budget sessions in the National Assembly during the previous 25 years.
Seventy percent of the budget speeches’ substance had little to no bearing on the budget, and the vast majority of the typical 48 hours allotted to the budget discussion each year is used to either recount constituent grievances or criticize political opponents.
The opposition has always managed to generate chaos during budget speeches given by finance ministers. Since most of the PTI’s opponents had already resigned, this year was an unusual outlier.
While the finance minister was delivering the budget statement two years ago, there were intense fighting between MNAs of the governing PTI and the opposition PDM, with hefty budget volumes being used as weapons.Parliamentary budget changes should be at the top of the legislative agenda for the newly elected assembly later this year.