Dar tables bill in NA seeking funds approval for Punjab, KP polls

*Click the Title above to view complete article on https://www.nation.com.pk/.

2023-04-11T07:38:05+05:00 JAVAID UR RAHMAN

ISLAMABAD    -     In a bid to give legal cover to the release of funds for Punjab As­sembly elections, Min­ister for Finance Ishaq Dar yesterday tabled a bill in the National As­sembly seeking the re­lease of funds for hold­ing elections of both the Punjab and Khyber Pa­khtunkhwa assemblies.

The bill titled ‘Charged Sum for General Election (Provincial Assemblies of Punjab & Khyber Pakh­tunkhwa) Bill 2023’ is aimed to give a picture that releasing funds would be tantamount to compromising on all revenues. 

The chair later re­ferred the matter to the concerned committee for further deliberation. 

Dar believes this will help save money and hold elections freely, fairly and in a transpar­ent manner. The clauses of the bill state, “Content of funds re­quired for conducting elections in both the provinces shall be “an expenditure charged upon the Federal Consolidated Fund (FCF)”. Last week, the apex court had fixed May 14 as the date for the polls in Punjab and direct­ed the federal government to re­lease election funds worth Rs21 billion to the Election Commis­sion of Pakistan (ECP) by April 10 for elections to the assem­blies of Punjab and KP. The bill stated that it shall “over­ride other laws” and have ef­fect “notwithstanding anything contained in any other law, rules and regulations” when it was in force. It added that the proposed law would stand re­pealed once elections for both the assemblies were held, not­ing that the general elections and polls to the Sindh and Ba­lochistan assemblies need not be held for it to be repealed. Minister for Finannce Ishaq Dar, speaking on the bill, came down hard on previous PTI gov­ernment for mismanaging eco­nomic situation of the country. “Unsuitable policies of previous government badly affected over the economy,” he said assuring that the government had “em­ployed all-out efforts to com­plete the IMF programme and the staff-level agreement would be signed soon.

 

View More News