{"id":11014,"date":"2025-06-20T00:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T00:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=11014"},"modified":"2025-06-20T00:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T00:04:10","slug":"mps-break-ground-with-budget-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=11014","title":{"rendered":"MPs break ground with budget review"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Former energy and finance minister Naveed Qamar said Parliament has made history by reviewing the 2025-26 budget word by word through its standing committees on finance and revenue.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a parliamentary consultation titled &#8216;Budget 2025-26: Numbers and Beyond&#8217; on Thursday, Qamar noted that for a hundred years, the budget-making process remained the sole domain of bureaucrats. &#8220;Parliamentarians were handed the budget as a fait accompli, only to rubber-stamp it. This time, we&#8217;ve amended the rules of parliamentary business, allowing committees from both houses to read the Finance Bill meticulously, calling in experts and officials to better understand the data and narrative,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that Parliament must take the lead in the budget process and proposed setting up a parliamentary budget office staffed by specialists. &#8220;The budget documents reach Parliament in June with only weeks to pass them. The process should start months earlier with expert input,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Nafisa Shah and Sher Ali Arbab, co-conveners of the Parliamentary Forum on Energy and Economy, explained how the forum works across party lines to broaden public engagement and deepen debate on energy and economic policies.<\/p>\n<p>Former State Bank governor Shahid Kardar criticised the budget as &#8220;unimaginative&#8221; and repetitive. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t address how government operates. Both federal and provincial governments are expanding without improving performance. Salaries and pensions are rising while development projects face major delays and cost overruns,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He also criticised international donors like the IMF for continuing to lend without requiring real structural reforms.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former energy and finance minister Naveed Qamar said Parliament has made history by reviewing the 2025-26 budget word by word through its standing committees on finance and revenue. Speaking at a parliamentary consultation titled &#8216;Budget 2025-26: Numbers and Beyond&#8217; on Thursday, Qamar noted that for a hundred years, the budget-making process remained the sole domain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}