ISLAMABAD: Showing its serious concerns over the attitude of bureaucracy in various ministries especially in finance and planning, the Senate Standing Committee on Planning decides to approach Chairman Senate to register a complain that their budget proposals were being ignored by the bureaucracy.
During the meeting of the committee which was chaired by Senator Agha Shahzaib Khan Durrani, it was observed that the most of the proposals made by the committee have been ignored in the budget 2018-19. The committee discussed that various proposals forwarded by the members of the during past several years have been constantly ignored by the government functionaries.
Senator Talah Mehmood said that several development schemes were forward by him since 2010 but they were never taken up. Supporting his views Senator Usman kakar and Senator Shibli Faraz also claimed that the budget was mainly being made by bureaucracy. The bureaucracy includes development projects to appease some individual politicians/ministers.
Shibli Faraz also said that budget recommendations were not being considered by bureaucracy. The elected people in the parliament were wasting their times. The committee later decided to meet the Chairman Senate to discuss the matter.
“We need to have an internal meeting first and discuss the issue with Chairman Senate to resolve the issue,” chairman of the committee noted.
The committee members also noted that there was no binding on the national assembly to consider the recommendations of the upper house while approving the budget.
Later an official of the planning commission informed media about Article 73 (1A) of the constitution. Senator Sajjad Turi said, “Rs1 trillion has been agreed for Fata reforms for next ten years and only Rs10 billion has been allocated in this regard, besides there is no mention of uplifting the international highway going to Afghanistan, there is only one airport in Fata its closed for more than a decade – why is there no money for it in this budget?”
The committee decided to hold a separate meeting on development project in FATA and directed that Secretary Planning to appear in the committee to explain – who was making the decisions over accepting or dropping the development projects
Were the deprived getting their rights if the Senate were heard and counted?