The government has asked all ministries and divisions to seek prior approval from the Enteral Finance Wing of the Finance Division for all commitments involving foreign exchange, including subscriptions and contributions to international organizations.
In a circular, the Finance Division also instructed ministries and divisions that all expenditures should be based on well-defined plans and should remain within the allocated and released budget. No expenditure should be approved by the Principal Accounting Officers (PAOs) or other authorized officers and the Accounting Offices without the availability of funds through a budgetary mechanism.
All the divisions, attached departments and sub-ordinate offices, autonomous bodies, organizations, commissions, authorities, entities, and corporations of the federal government have been directed to follow the new budget execution strategy.
Under the strategy, they have been asked to strictly implement the provisions of the constitution, law, rules, regulations, procedures, guidelines, strategies, and instructions. Further, they have been asked to ensure that there should not be any deviation, or non-compliance by any authority or office for whatever reason and circumstances.
The circular highlighted that The PAOs are the Chief Accountable Officers for the public funds entrusted to them by the National Assembly and the Prime Minister of Pakistan and they are responsible for financial propriety, fiscal discipline, and output-based performance budgeting.
All the autonomous bodies, organizations, commissions, authorities, entities, and corporations of the Federal Government, which are receiving public funds, in whichever form, kind, or procedure, directly or indirectly, will seek prior approval of the Finance Division, through Expenditure Wing, relating to the creation of new posts, any increase in Pay and Allowances of their employees (ERE), Pension and Non-ERE (A01111, A01160, AO12gg, A03985, A04118, and A052).
The circular said that grant-in-aid should be non-recurring and funds should be disbursed only to meet any justified shortfall for a limited period of time. All bodies receiving grant-in-aid should endeavor to be self-sufficient to meet their operational expenditures in accordance with their approved budgets by their competent forums.
The expenditures on subsidies should be targeted and output based. Any un-targeted subsidy should be phased out at the earliest. All the proposals for the grant of subsidies should be prepared in consultation with relevant Wings of the Finance Division. There should be no un-funded subsidy, it added.
