NA resolution on uplift funds non-implementable: Dar

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has categorically declared that the resolution passed by the National Assembly last week urging the federal government to transfer the amount that has already been allocated and released for various ongoing development projects to a non-lapsable account cannot be implemented because of a legal hitch. The finance minister made this assertion on the floor of the assembly during the budget debate on Tuesday when Sabir Qaimkhani of the Muttehida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) sought a clarification on the matter. “I came to know that a resolution has been passed …. the funds cannot be made non-lapsable as of today in the presence of a law,” said the minister. However, he said, they could sit together to find a way out. Without naming the law, the minister said the funds could not be prevented from lapsing without amending the law. When the MQM-P member asked the minister to bring the amendment, the minister said it was not possible in the present sitting as during the budget session, they could not take up any other business than the passage of the finance bill, generally known as the federal budget.