National Economic Council set to assess cuts to uplift funding today

With the IMF estimating a Rs175 billion cut in the consolidated development programme of the federal government and provinces, the caretakers in the Centre are seeking over Rs201bn reduction in the federal development budget alone for the current fiscal year, including Rs121bn allocated for the federal-funded provincial projects. On Monday (today), the National Economic Council (NEC), chaired by Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar, is set to take up a six-point agenda, including a cap on federal financing to provincial projects and proposing priorities and guidelines for the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the next fiscal year. The discussion takes place even as an elected government is expected to be well in place within the first half of February, almost three months ahead of the next year’s budget. This also comes amid strong opposition from caretaker governments of the three smaller provinces — Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — that want such matters to be better left to the soon-incoming elected governments and because of their own financial constraints. Punjab, while highlighting the challenges of legal, contractual, and financial liabilities, has not openly opposed the Centre’s move to scale down funding to provincial projects.