Islamabad: The Finance Ministry on Thursday revealed that changes to the Public Finance Management Act 2019 were currently underway, a news source reported. The ministry stated that these amendments would bring transparency and improvement to the utilisation of funds allocated to federal ministries.
Secretary Finance Kamran Naveed Baloch informed a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance about this development. Officials concerned stated that the purpose of a single treasury account was to transfer public money in different accounts to one account of the federal government.
The Finance Ministry stated that under the Public Finance Management Act 2019, they would set up an internal audit policy board. Naveed added that the Principal Account Officers (PAOs) would submit a certificate with regard to government spending and ministries would have to surrender their unutilised funds to the federal government. He said that all ministries would have to give an undertaking for surrendering the unutilised amount.
Naveed said that the ministry would base all government expenditure – recurrent or development demand for grants – on a well-defined plan and strategic priorities as approved in the budget strategy paper.
The officials concerned further informed the meeting that the federal government income includes that from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) taxes and non-tax revenue. In response, the committee asked the ministry to explain the definition of non-tax revenue.
On the other hand, the finance committee has rejected a proposal for imposing tax on luxury houses in Islamabad. It added that it was not explained under what law the tax was being imposed.
