No allocations made for fresh elections in federal budget
The federal government has not made any allocations for the general elections in the budget for fiscal year 2022-23.
ISLAMABAD: The federal government has not made any allocations for the general elections in the budget for fiscal year 2022-23 which showed the government’s intentions not to conduct fresh polls in the coming days.
It emerged that no allocation made in the federal budget FY2022-23 for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for holding general elections in the country.
When questioned by News360, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail confirmed that no allocation was made for the general elections. However, Rs11 billion was allocated for ECP to organise local government (LG) elections and by-polls.
Estimated expenditures
It was reported earlier that the next general elections will be the most expensive election in the country as the details of the election expenditure for the year 2023 had come to light.
According to the details presented in the National Assembly, an estimate of PKR 15 billion will be made for security including the army deployment in the forthcoming elections. The cost of conducting electronic voting is estimated at PKR 5.60 Billion. PKR 4.83 billion will be spent on the publication of ballot papers.
The document stated that PKR 1.79 billion will be spent on the training of election staff. The cost of elections in Punjab is estimated at PKR 9.65 billion. According to the document, PKR 3.65 billion will be spent on elections in Sindh.
It added that the election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is estimated to cost PKR 3.95 billion. Elections in Balochistan are estimated to cost PKR 1.11 billion. Economists had said that the ECP has estimated huge expenditures, and raising funds for this would be a significant burden on the budget.
FY2022-23 allocations
The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) government had presented a budget of Rs9,502 billion in the National Assembly (NA) on June 10.
58% of the budget had been earmarked for defence and payment of loans and interest. That is, only 42% of the budget will be spent on the development and prosperity of Pakistan.
The budget for the next financial year 2022-23 was presented by Finance Minister Miftah Ismail in which Rs1,523 has been allocated for defence while Rs3,950 billion has been set aside for debt and interest payments.
Rs3439 billion was allocated for the repayment of internal debts and Rs511 billion has been set aside for the repayment of foreign loans.
In the budget 2022-23, it is proposed to set aside Rs1,523 billion for defence.
Out of Rs1,523 billion, it was recommended to allocate over Rs724 billion for the Pakistan Army, Rs323.71 billion for Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Rs165 billion for Pakistan Navy.
Economic analysts had said the major portion of the budget will be spent on debt and interest payments and defence, with the remaining 42% left over for the development and prosperity of Pakistanis who are already facing the menace of inflation and back-to-back crises.
