Acting Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has informed the Standing Committee on Finance on the issue of the Supreme Court over issuing funds for elections in Punjab that SBP did not have the authority to release funds.
Ali Pervaiz Malik, Attorney General Dr. Ramesh Kumar, and Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar were present at the meeting.
Burgess Tahir asserted that the Supreme Court should now change Article 84 on its own, that it is illegal to release funds for State Bank elections, and that holding elections now will take advantage of the smaller provinces. If elections are held only in Punjab, they will have an impact on the entire country.
The law minister said that the federal government accounts for every penny of the Federal Consolidated Fund, the Ministry of Finance has said that additional funds have not been kept in the budget for the elections, spending twice on the elections is not in the interest of the country, the Supreme Court directed the State Bank to manage the funds, the trustees of the government funds are the elected representatives of the people.
Meanwhile, Acting Governor SBP Seema Kamil told the committee that the Supreme Court has ordered to allocate Rs21 billion, we allocated money on the order of the Supreme Court, but the state bank does not have the power to release, by allocating funds the money will remain in the account.
