Centre pushing KP into bankruptcy by withholding funds: Jhagra.

PESHAWAR -- The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Thursday accused the centre of pushing the province into bankruptcy by withholding its due share in federal transfers and net hydel profit as well as allocations for the merged tribal districts.

Addressing a news conference here, provincial finance minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra said the federal government's actions had so far denied the provincial government around Rs120 billion from its due share.

He said the situation was unacceptable to the province. 'We have slowed down our development and non-salary spending for next four to six weeks to raise balances in province accounts in order to address the financial challenge,' he said.

The minister said the slowdown was also aimed at ensuring uninterrupted spending for the flood rehabilitation across the province.

Minister claims provincial govt denied Rs120bn from its due funding share

He added that the province had also allocated Rs10 billion for the purpose.

Mr Jhagra said since its formation, the federal government hadn't paid even a penny to the province in lieu of NHP share that amounted to Rs61 billion.

He added that the last PTI-led federal government had provided the provincial government with Rs68 billion NHP for July 2020-March 2022 period, but not a single penny had been received by the province since the ouster of the PTI government in April this year.

The minister said the analysis of the federal transfers showed that the centre had released less than the province's due share in the taxes collected by the Federal Board of Revenue.

He said during the financial year 2020-21, the federal government had transferred Rs418.07 billion to the province out of its due share of Rs429.6 billion leaving the province short of Rs11.7 billion.

Mr Jhagra said the province's federal transfers were Rs1.5 billion short of the due share in 2021-22 and Rs14.75 billion in the current fiscal.

'Federal transfers for every month of the current fiscal total Rs3.5-Rs4 billion short of our due share,' he said.

Regarding allocations for tribal districts, the minister said the provincial government had spent nearly Rs20 billion in the erstwhile Fata from its own resources.

He said the tribal districts' budget had been curtailed by the current Pakistan Democratic Movement government in the centre unlike the continuous past hikes.

Mr Jhagra said development budget of tribal districts hadn't been increased during the current fiscal.

'The [Prime Minister Shehbaz...