Anomaly committees to comb through budget

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday announced the formation of two anomaly committees, as per tradition, after the announcement of the federal budget.

In an announcement on the floor of the National Ass­embly during budget debate, he said two notifications for the constitution of business-anomaly and tec­h­nical-anomaly committees had been issued, which wo­u­ld have the mandate to look into any anomaly(s) if mistakenly printed in the budget document or poin­ted out by any individual.

He said the committees, formed in consultation with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) would thoroughly deliberate on the anomaly(s), if any, and recommend the government for their removal from the document within a stipulated timeframe before passage of the budget.

During the budget debate, JI lawmaker Abdul Akbar Chitrali criticised the inclusion of interest-based financial measures, expressing concern over substantial expenditure on loan interest payments to international institutions.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2023