Misplaced priorities
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The News International, Pakistan
Sunday, June 14, 2009
We made a similar prediction when we wrote the editorial for fiscal 2008-09’s budget and regrettably what we said last year seems to apply this year as well – that many of the targets mentioned by Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar in her budget speech on Saturday seemed overly optimistic. Consider the basics: the government foresees a 23.5 per cent increase in total expenditure to 2.48 trillion rupees (around $30.5 billion) with development spending (the PSDP allocation) increasing by around 17.45 per cent to 646 billion rupees. The official news agency which gave details of this on the wires as the speech was being delivered in parliament did not shy away from calling the PSDP (Public Sector Development Programme) allocation the “highest in the country’s history”. Obviously, whoever used such a phrase is not familiar with the fact that such allocations need to rise over time, mainly because more funds and resources are needed to supply an ever-growing population the same amount of basic services and amenities. This would mean that in all likelihood the PSDP allocation for next year would be even higher and the one for the year after that higher still – and so on and so forth – and should not mean any singular achievement in this regard by the present government. Furthermore, the outgoing fiscal saw several cuts in 2008-09’s budget PSDP allocation so there is no guarantee that the same thing will not be repeated during 2009-2010, especially since we now have a massive IDP situation.
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Sunday, June 14, 2009
We made a similar prediction when we wrote the editorial for fiscal 2008-09’s budget and regrettably what we said last year seems to apply this year as well – that many of the targets mentioned by Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar in her budget speech on Saturday seemed overly optimistic. Consider the basics: the government foresees a 23.5 per cent increase in total expenditure to 2.48 trillion rupees (around $30.5 billion) with development spending (the PSDP allocation) increasing by around 17.45 per cent to 646 billion rupees. The official news agency which gave details of this on the wires as the speech was being delivered in parliament did not shy away from calling the PSDP (Public Sector Development Programme) allocation the “highest in the country’s history”. Obviously, whoever used such a phrase is not familiar with the fact that such allocations need to rise over time, mainly because more funds and resources are needed to supply an ever-growing population the same amount of basic services and amenities. This would mean that in all likelihood the PSDP allocation for next year would be even higher and the one for the year after that higher still – and so on and so forth – and should not mean any singular achievement in this regard by the present government. Furthermore, the outgoing fiscal saw several cuts in 2008-09’s budget PSDP allocation so there is no guarantee that the same thing will not be repeated during 2009-2010, especially since we now have a massive IDP situation.
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Labels: Budget, Development, Economy
posted @ 8:49 AM,
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