PESHAWAR: A joint budget review meeting of around 30 departments was held on Thursday under the chairmanship of Adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister on Finance Muzamil Aslam, to ensure effective representation of the policies and priorities of the provincial government in the budget.
Special Secretary Finance Khuda Bakhsh, SNG Waqas Pracha along with senior officials of Finance and Planning and Development (P and D) Departments and representatives of line departments attended the meeting.
The main objective of the meeting was to discuss and review the budget 2024-25 and to prioritize and ensure alignment of public welfare projects.
During the meeting, the Advisor on Finance emphasized several important points including policy-based budgeting, measures for austerity, investment in service delivery, public welfare priorities including redressal of financial losses, etc.
Muzamil Aslam said that budgeting should be driven by policy objectives rather than being a mere numerical exercise and this ap
proach ensures that budget allocations reflect strategic priorities such as improving the quality of education, access to health services.
The advisor directed for strict austerity measures to achieve budget efficiency, including cutting unnecessary expenditure and focusing resources on essential projects, and through better financial management, budget savings can be achieved.
He said that instead of building new schools and hospitals, the quality of existing schools and hospitals should be improved and recommended speedy completion of these projects to enhance service delivery.
Muzamil Aslam stressed that the budget should be closely linked to policy outcomes to ensure that every allocation supports the government’s strategic goals.
The Advisor also highlighted the need to reduce subsidies by identifying potential savings during the review process. He said that all autonomous public sector institutions including universities, water supply and sanitation companies have been made bounded to submit necessa
ry data to the finance department.
He said that no grant or subsidy will be released without meeting this data requirement.
The Finance Department informed the forum about an especially designed online portal that will facilitate the collection of necessary data to measure the performance of Public Sector Entities (PSEs) to ensure greater transparency and accountability.