Senate gets first-ever budgetary cut; termed unlawful

The federal government has inflicted a cut at the budget allocated for the Senate—an action taken for the first time in Pakistan’s history.
The Senate which has reacted to the slash says it is against the constitution which protects the original budget of the house.
The house has rejected the decision of the government to cut its annual budget by around Rs 170 million while terming it an unconstitutional move and urged the immediate restoration of “original” allocation.
After three opposition lawmakers raised this issue, the house through a voice vote approved a recommendation as part of the set of recommendations of the Senate’s finance committee, on the Finance Bill 2020, asking the government to restore the “original” budget allocation.
Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance Senator Farooq H Naek separately moved the recommendation.
Senator Barrister Ali Saif was the first one who raised the issue and said that parliament had financial autonomy under the constitution and the government had no powers to slash its budget. He pointed out that the Ministry of Finance has proposed a cut of Rs 170 million in the annual budget of the Senate. PML-N Senator Javed Abbasi termed the move unconstitutional and said that under the constitution, it was the executive that had been placed under the parliament to keep a check on its expenditures.
He said that it was an attempt against the supremacy of the parliament. He referred to the Articles 87 and 88 of the constitution said that the constitution empowered both the houses of the parliament to make their own budgets and for this purpose, the high-powered finance committee existed.
“This is for the first time in the history of Pakistan that the budget of parliament has been cut only to have control over it.” Chairman finance committee Senator Naek referred to Article 88 of the constitution which reads: “The expenditure of the National Assembly and the Senate within authorized appropriations shall be controlled by the National Assembly or, as the case may be, the Senate acting on the advice of its Finance Committee.”
He said the finance committee thus becomes a constitutional committee and the executive can in no way override its decisions. He added the decision to slash the budget of the Senate was in total violation of the constitution.
Senator Naek later presented before the house the report of the standing committee on the proposals for making recommendations on the Finance Bill, 2020, containing the Annual Budget Statement, which was unanimously adopted by the house. The National Assembly now will consider these recommendations.
The recommendations include a 10 percent increase in the salaries and pensions of government employees, a double increase in health and education budgets, allocation of funds for the construction of small dams, and to abolish withholding tax on withdrawal of money from banks besides others