Supplementary grants: Several depts demand extra funds beyond allocations

ISLAMABAD: An additional amount of Rs24.93 billion was spent on purchase of COVID-19 vaccines and payment of outstanding dues of advertising agencies, budget documents revealed.

Originally, an amount of Rs680m had been allocated in the budget to the national health services, regulations and coordination division. However, a supplementary sum of Rs24.9 billion was consumed for acquisition of vaccines and Rs30 million on advertisement campaign.

Other additional expenditure of the Health Ministry included Rs53m, which was used for procurement of medical equipment, machinery and medicines to combat coronavirus. Besides, supplementary funds amounting to Rs219 million were spent on establishment of isolation hospital and infection treatment centre in Islamabad. Similarly, an additional amount of Rs1 billion was consumed for pandemic response effectiveness project (PREP) (Rs656 million) and response, recovery and resilience project (PRREP) (Rs400m).

These demands are covered in the regular and technical grants, which represent expenditures that could not be met from within the budgeted allocations under various grants/appropriations. A supplementary grant involves upward change in the sanctioned budget grant while the technical supplementary grant means surrender of funds from one budget grant and budget authorisation into another grant. Technical grant doesn’t increase overall government expenditure. Budget documents say that an additional amount of Rs1.4 billion was consumed by communication campaign to highlight the incentives offered to the construction, housing and infrastructure development (Rs302m), government initiatives (Rs1 billion), and clearing the liabilities of advertising agencies incurred on the communication campaign of Ehsaas Emergency cash programme (Rs109m).

A supplementary amount of Rs233m was paid to the Pakistan foreign legal counsel, hired for Karkey arbitration at International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Documents show that the Cabinet Division used an additional money of Rs67m for repairs and maintenance/POL of high security vehicles over and above the allocated budget. A supplementary grant of Rs31.879 billion has been demanded for the defence services. Additional funds were spent on construction of community bunkers along the Line of Control (LoC) and working boundary, Special Security Division-South (SSD), repair and maintenance of three Cessna Grand Aircraft, recurring cost of the SSD-north, fencing along the Pak-Iran border, internal security duty allowances, and spare parts and maintenance of helicopter of government of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Besides, a total of additional Rs4.353 billion were paid to the defence services for COVID-19 (4.133b) and reimbursement of Pakistan Army Funds utilised in establishment/operational expenditure of National Command and Operations Centre (Rs219m).

An amount of Rs5.651 billion was spent on the prime minister’s fiscal package for agriculture in the wake of COVID-19.

An additional sum of Rs522 million was used for the Pakistan remote sensing satellite (Rs400m) and feasibility and system definition study of Pakistan multi-mission satellite (PAKSAT-HM-1).

These supplementary grants are always approved by the National Assembly without any hassle or discussion every year.