Pakistan in breach of all fiscal targets, has no funds for provincial polls

Pakistan’s parliamentary panel on Thursday rejected a bill seeking funds for the elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces according to the directives of the Supreme Court. Instead, the coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, introduced a bill titled “Charged Sum for General Election (Provincial Assemblies of Punjab & Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) Bill 2023” in Parliament on Monday to authorise the release of the required funds for the ECP to hold elections. The apex court on April 4 ordered the federal government to provide Rs 21 billion to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by Monday to enable it to organise polls in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

During the Senate's standing committee session, the state minister said that Pakistan had a limited amount of funds as the country was struggling to avert a possible default. While presenting the bill in the National Assembly on Monday, the finance minister said that it is now the responsibility of the parliament to decide whether funds to ECP should be released or not. Expressing his views in the lower house, Dar said the snap polls ordered by the apex court were not in the national interest due to the country's security and economic situation. “Elections in all assemblies should be held on the same date,” the finance minister said, adding that the government laid this bill before the parliament in light of the Supreme Court's orders to release Rs21 billion to the ECP.

Meanwhile, An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report has revealed that Pakistan will miss the fiscal and debt reduction targets of this fiscal year and the situation will become worse in the next fiscal year with a budget deficit peaking at 8.3% of the size of the nation’s economy. As per The Express Tribune report, the Fiscal Monitor report, released on the side-lines of the IMF Spring Meetings, showed that Pakistan will miss all targets related to the reduction of the budget deficit, gross public debt, and expenditures and increasing revenues during FY2022-23 and FY2023-24. Under the $6.5 billion bailout package, the IMF had targeted Pakistan achieving a primary budget surplus – a measure that shows that government revenues are higher than its expenditures excluding interest payments. The primary budget surplus had been boasted as a strategy to reduce public debt.