Pak presidency budget slashed significantly as COVID cases increase to 132,399

The overall budget of Pakistan's presidency has been cut by more than 60 per cent for 2020-21, according to the budget document.

The total budget of the President House was 992 million PKR for the outgoing fiscal year but President Arif Alvi has reduced it by 597 million, or 60.18 per cent and the reduction has been shown in his personal expenditures along with cuts in allowances of the human resources, Dawn news reported on Saturday.

The budget book 2020-21 shows that regular allowance and other allowances of staff and officers posted in the President secretariat is 193.22 PKR for the upcoming fiscal year, as compared to 458.74 million spent under the same head in the outgoing fiscal year.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan has increased to 132,399, of which nearly 50,000 were reported this month alone, while the death toll stood at 2,551, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.

Another 88 patients lost their lives due to COVID-19 across the country, taking the overall toll to 2,551, while 40,247 patients have successfully recovered and been discharged from hospitals, according to the Ministry.

Some 839,019 people have so far been tested in the country of over 200 million people, with nearly 30,000 conducted over the past 24 hours.

Similarly, a major cut has been made in the operating expenditures of the presidency to 53.38 million PKR, which was 180.44 million in the fiscal 2019-20.

It seems that President Alvi was not taking any salary, which was 10.75 million PKR in 2019-20 but there was no mention of it in the budget book.

On Friday, the Pakistan government unveiled its budget for the fiscal 2020-21 amid an economic slowdown and challenges triggered by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Federal Minister for Industries and Production, Hammad Azhar, presented the budget of 7,294.9 billion PKR ($44 billion) for the upcoming fiscal year starting from July 2020 to June 2021 at the lower house of Parliament after approval by the cabinet.

The World Health Organization has declared Pakistan the second-riskiest country after Afghanistan in terms of vulnerability to the pandemic.