Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has said that government spending is going to be reduced. 60 percent of the vacant posts in federal ministries and institutions that had not yet been filled have been eliminated, which number about 150,000. Now, no recruitment will be made on these posts. The federal government has not stopped the chatter of the federal cabinet, assembly members and civil and military bureaucracy to reduce government spending, but it has eliminated employment opportunities for 150,000 people. While holding a news conference in Islamabad, he said that our effort is to take the economy towards sustainable development. Structural reforms in the tax system have been underway since December. The private sector will have to play a role for economic development. We are going to reduce government spending. This is an important step towards right-sizing the federal government. He said that we are asked that you are taking a lot of taxes from us, so where is the money being spent? Why don’t you reduce your spending? This is a very good question, in this regard, the Prime Minister had formed a committee under my leadership, Muhammad Aurangzeb said that this committee includes representatives of the government, allied parties, government officers and the business community, the TORs of the committee had been fixed, according to which the main objective was to reduce government expenditure, this is the public’s money and there must be a reduction in government expenditure, the Finance Minister said that during this time the question also arose whether this step should be taken by the federal government or after the 18th Amendment, this responsibility should be given to the provinces or it should be handed over to the private sector? He said that the federation has 43 ministries and 400 of their subordinate institutions.
Rs 900 billion is spent on all of these, now work has been started to reduce these expenses, how can the federal government reduce these expenses, we have taken steps to save the public’s money, Muhammad Aurangzeb said that instead of taking steps to reduce the expenses of 43 ministries at once, we will gradually bring different ministries and their subordinate institutions under the ambit of reducing expenses, for this, 5 to 6 ministries will be selected at a time, the Finance Minister said that the ministers of the first 6 ministries, their secretaries, heads of subordinate institutions and relevant officers were heard in the committee, they got an opportunity to know their position, how the expenses should be reduced, similarly, 4 ministries were taken in the second phase, now we are talking to 5 ministries in the third phase, after these detailed meetings, a strategy is made for right sizing, the entire process is being supervised by the Prime Minister himself, he said that in this whole process it is seen that the resources of the institutions and What to do with the human resource? The decisions made during the past 6 months to eliminate 60% of the vacant positions that were yet to be filled, which amounts to approximately 150,000 positions, have been eliminated.