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Excess ministry spending goes unchecked by JS

Shakhawat Liton
The House like previous years cannot examine the reasons behind excess expenditure by ministries in the current fiscal as no move was taken to allow the parliamentary body to do it as per the rules of procedure.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Thursday placed the supplementary budget in parliament along with the budget for next fiscal.
The revised budget shows a good number of
ministries and divisions spent additional amount than the parliament-granted allocation for the current fiscal.
The House is scheduled for passing the revised budget tomorrow after holding a brief discussion, approving the excess expenditure of the ministries without examining the justification.
The section 233 (4) of the Rules of Procedure of Jatiya Sangsad says if any money has been
spent on any service during a financial year in excess of the amount granted by the House for that purpose, the public accounts committee will examine with reference to the facts of each case the circumstances leading to such an excess and make such recommendation as it may deem fit.
A senior official in the parliament secretariat said the parliamentary body cannot exercise its jurisdiction this year too as the revised budget was never sent to the committee for examination. The committee did not move on its own to exercise its jurisdiction since the rules of procedure was enacted in 1973, he added.
The House however will hold a brief discussion on the supplementary budget with its sitting resuming this afternoon. The Business Advisory Committee of parliament led by the speaker allocated only five hours for the discussion. The supplementary budget is set to be passed on Monday, the official said.
The official however cannot specify the ways how the committee will examine the reasons for excess expenditure whether the House sends it to the committee or does the task allbyitself.
Contacted by The Daily Star yesterday over phone, Speaker Abdul Hamid said the public accounts committee can hold discussion on the revised budget if it wants. He added the committee might have held a discussion on it by this time.
Member of the committee and senior parliamentarian MK Anwar however said they didn't hold any discussion in last two days since the revised budget was placed in parliament onThursday.
Anwar, also a former BNP minister, said the House should examine the excess expenditure through its committee to know the reasons for excess expenditures to ensure accountability of the executive to the legislature.
But he said the House never allowed its committee to exercise the authority. "If we want to engage people's voice in the government expenditure, the system must be introduced," Anwar said.
Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, chief of the public accounts committee, however said the overall expenditure of the current fiscal is less than the amount granted by parliament.
When his attention was drawn to the nondevelopment budget that shows some ministries spent excess amount of money, the committee chief said the expenditure is not much in excess than the allocation.
The revised budget shows, for example, the parliament secretariat spent Tk 73 crore against allocation of Tk 59 crore, the Prime Minister’s Office spent Tk 151 crore against allocation of Tk 93 crore, Cabinet Division Tk 31 crore against TK 19 crore, the establishment ministry Tk 740 crore against Tk 663 crore, foreign ministry Tk 571 crore against Tk 357 crore, defence ministry Tk 7,743 crore against Tk 6,790 crore, home ministry Tk 5,729 crore against Tk 5,254 crore, education ministry Tk 7,520 crore against Tk 6,294 crore and water resources ministry spent Tk 698 crore against allocation of Tk 547 for non-development budget in the current fiscal.