News
Tight curbs on state expenditure
View(s):- Ministry secretaries and top officials will be held personally responsible for any big expenditure without Treasury nod
The approval of the Department of Treasury Operations should be obtained before entering into commitments regarding such capital expenditure and the request will be placed on a waiting list for approval depending on the financial situation.
Accordingly, a Treasury circular has gone out to all ministry secretaries, chief secretaries of Provincial Councils, heads of departments, district secretaries and heads of state-owned enterprises.
This would be in addition to a reminder to all chief accounting officers that they will be held accountable if they do not ensure strict financial administration for expenses of budgetary allocations for 2023 as part of a fresh direction from the Treasury.
They have been directed to manage expenditures within the limits of the allocations.
The circular has cited provisions under Finance Regulations and the Finance Circular under which the Chief Accounting Officers could be held responsible.
The directives are part of a series of measures to be implemented in making use of the budgetary allocations for this year.
The Treasury has listed the priorities on how the allocations should be made use of this year.
Accordingly, the first priority should be the settlement of bills and liabilities followed by maintaining the essential activities, completion of nearly completed work, and ensuring safety of partially completed projects to avoid inconvenience caused to the public.
The last item on the list, according to the circular, is any expenditure related to new commitments.
The circular said that it was important to verify the availability of funds prior to making any commitment even though provisions had been allocated, to prevent the difficulties encountered by the government as well as contractors and service providers due to the accumulation of unsettled liabilities.
Estimates show that more than Rs 280 billion is due to be paid to contractors for work completed.
Since it is extremely difficult to grant additional allocations exceeding the provisions allocated for expenditure units “due to the highly restricted fiscal space at present”, the circular stressed that this year’s expenditure should be well prioritised and managed within the allocated provisions.
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