General elections: Govt finalises strategy to disburse funds to ECP

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has rejected the recommendations forwarded by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the disbursement of funds for the general polls, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

The federal government finalised the strategy regarding the disbursement of funds to the ECP and rejected the commission’s suggestion to release all funds in the first quarter.

The government decided to disburse funds to the ECP in phases. Sources told ARY News that ECP will be given Rs10 billion funds again which was allocated in the previous fiscal year. It has been decided to disburse a total of Rs42.42 billion to the election commission.

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Sources added that the funds will be disbursed in phases on the basis of ECP’s requirements. The ECP will contact the finance ministry for the funds. In the first phase, Rs10 billion will be released out of the Rs42.42 billion allocated for the general elections.

The commission had sought Rs47.42 billion for holding general elections in the previous fiscal year. In the previous fiscal year, the federal government had approved the disbursement of Rs15 billion to the ECP and initially issued Rs5 billion.

Sources told ARY News that Rs4.47 billion out of Rs5 billion funds were used by the ECP and the remaining funds worth Rs530 million were returned to the finance ministry. Later, the ECP had requested the finance ministry to release Rs10.53 billion in the previous FY.

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Last week, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had approved a technical supplementary grant worth Rs42.528 billion for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for conducting general elections.

The approval was granted at a meeting of ECC held in Islamabad with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in the chair.