Senate forwards 65 budget recommendations to NA for consideration

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) parliamentary leader in the Senate Sherry Rehman said on Tuesday her recommendation to place all important debt agreements, including the one with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), before parliament has been approved by the Senate.

In a tweet, the PPP senator said the Senate approved 154 budget recommendations, including 65 on the Finance Bill 2019-20 and 68 recommendations on the Public Sector Development Programme (PSPD).

Headed by its chairman Farooq H Naek, the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs put forward a total of 171 recommendations. However, the upper house of parliament rejected 17 of them.

The approved recommendations were sent to the National Assembly for consideration.

Among the recommendations was one by Senator Shibli Faraz to abolish Riba from the national economy at the earliest.

Whereas, Senator Kalsoom Parveen proposed that all federal government employees of grade 17 and above be given 10 per cent of basic salary as ad-hoc relief while the employees up to grade 16 should be given 20 per cent.

The Senate also approved recommendation calling for merger of ad-hoc relief allowances of 10 per cent for year 2016, 2017, and 2018 with the basic pay of civil servants and armed forces.