The government is taking on critical issues affecting the country’s economy while providing concessions for the people.
The new action is to deviate from norms to make key announcements shortly relating to relief for farmers, small and medium businesses especially to Easter terror affected sectors and the middle class.
A Vote on Account (VOA) has already been approved by the Cabinet to meet state expenditure for the first quarter of next year as it is not prudent to present the full budget 2020 on the eve of presidential and other polls.
According to provisional estimates of the Ministry, state expenditure has been set at around Rs. 1887 billion for the first quarter of next year with a majority of being allocated for debt servicing. VOA is the permission required to withdraw money from the Consolidated Fund but it has no provision to spend money from new revenue proposals.
However the government will take measures to ensure that an adequate space is provided for social and capital spending to provide goodies and relief for the people targeting elections within the overall spending envelop, a senior Ministry official said.
Under this set up Nation Building Tax (NBT) and Value Added Tax (VAT) have been amended recently providing tax exemptions for tourist and building construction sectors.
(LI)