In a roundtable discussion on Public Debt Management, #omarasgharkhanfoundation stated that findings of the global #OpenBudgetSurvey show that the passage of the Public Finance Management Law (2019) and the publication of the Medium-Term Budgetary Framework are important initiatives that have helped improve budget data publicly available in Pakistan. However, much more effort was needed to ensure timely public access to substantive budget information. For example, the Pre-Budget Statement should be publicly available at least one month prior to presenting the budget in the parliament. It should give the government’s broad vision for the upcoming fiscal year and provide details of revenue and debt.

The roundtable was chaired by MNA Syed Naveed Qamar, Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance. It was attended by Mr. Muzzamil Aslam, Advisor Finance-KP, MNAs Dr. Mirza Ikhtiar Beg (PPP), Dr. Farooq Sattar (MQM) and Mr. Riaz Fatyana (PTI), senior government officials, sector experts, civil society representatives including journalists.

The #OpenBudgetSurvey is conducted globally once every two years. Sinc

e 2009, #omarasgharkhanfoundation leads the OBS research in Pakistan