- KP to unveil tax-free budget plans with wage hike, development spending: sources.
- PTI supports presentation of full budget despite delayed proposals: Shokat Yousafzai
- Mushtaq Ghani says 35 PTI members will finalize budget strategy after consultations.
PESHAWAR: PTI president Advocate Gohar Ali Khan on Friday said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa budget was not being passed on the request of the federal government but as the constitutional and legal responsibility of the province.
talking to Geographic newsGohar said passing the budget was a provincial matter in itself and had no connection to the federal government. He added that the provincial budget would be approved and all legislators, including Ali Amin Gandapur, would attend the assembly session.
It should be noted that the provincial government is scheduled to present its budget for the fiscal year 2026-27 at 2:00 p.m. today.
Meanwhile, senior PTI leader Shaukat Yousafzai said Chief Minister Sohail Afridi had initially wanted to delay the budget until a meeting with the PTI founder took place.
He said one proposal was to table a three-month budget if legal complications became inevitable, but legal experts warned such a move would halt development work across the province and only cover issues such as salaries and pensions.
Yousafzai said the party finally recommended presenting the full budget to avoid harming the province and ensure the continuity of development projects. He said the decision was made in the wider public interest and confirmed the budget would be presented today.
Addressing reports of internal differences, he said members with reservations were not rebelling against the party and remained committed to the PTI. He said all lawmakers would attend the assembly session, express their concerns in speeches and ultimately vote in favor of the party’s stand.
He also denied that clandestine contacts were taking place and said the people of the province had a right to expect consultations with their leader.
Yousafzai argued that there was no legal obstacle to meeting the PTI founder and claimed that such meetings were denied for political reasons.
According to provincial government sources, the proposed budget is estimated at more than Rp 2.17 trillion. It includes a development program worth over Rs 519 billion, with Rs 150 billion from international donor agencies earmarked for development projects. The budget also proposes 55 billion rupees for local governments, a 7% increase in salaries and pensions of government employees and the merger of ad hoc relief subsidies for 2022 and 2025.
Sources further said that the province expects to receive Rp1.443 trillion from the federal government and around Rp105 billion in net profits from Hydel, while revenue from its own resources is estimated at Rp180 billion. More than 900 new development plans have also been proposed.
Yousafzai, however, said the total size of the budget was expected to be around Rp2.2 trillion and proposed allocating Rp235 billion for development works. He said the provincial cabinet was finalizing wage increases in an effort to ensure the minimum wage was enough for people to meet their basic needs, particularly at a time when inflation had reached very high levels and the federal government had offered little relief.
He said no new taxes were being imposed in the budget and instead various taxes were being reduced to ease the burden on the public, describing the budget as tax-free. He also said the provincial government was not including subsidy payments in the budget as a form of protest and alleged the federal government had not provided the province with its fair share of finances.
Yousafzai added that the prime minister and his team had tried to ensure that the budget did not put additional pressure on the public. He said the budget would be realistic and based on deficit rather than surplus or balanced, with an expected deficit of around Rs 50 billion and spending aligned with funds actually received from the federal government.
He said education and health remained key priorities, while tourism, mines and minerals, water resources and electricity generation offered opportunities to make the province more self-sufficient. He added that work continues on small and large energy projects and that the provincial government is paying special attention to tourism.
Yousafzai also criticized the federal government for what he described as a lack of cooperation, stating that work on the National Highways Authority’s roads was not progressing and urging Islamabad to support the province’s development efforts.
On the other hand, former provincial assembly speaker and PTI MPA Mushtaq Ghani said. Geographic news that a meeting of 35 like-minded PTI legislators would be held at 2 pm to determine their final strategy on the budget.
He said the prime minister had earlier maintained that the budget would not be presented before a meeting with the PTI founder, but was now reversing that position.
Ghani questioned how the budget presentation would put pressure on the federal government and stated that no significant pressure was being brought to bear to secure meetings with the PTI founder.
