Purchase of new vehicles, meeting allowances for govt officers stopped

The government is taking up austerity measures, cutting down on expenses. To this end, the finance department issued three different circulars on Sunday.

The purchase of all types of new vehicles for government officials has been stopped. Allowances paid to government officials attending various committee meetings has been discontinued too.

Expenditure has been recommended on the projects taken up under the Annual Development Programme, based on their importance. Some expenditure were said to be held up while some others were said to be curbed. These decisions have been taken in the backdrop of the global economic condition.

One of the three circulars is on the suspension and reduction of some of the expenditure on the revenue and development budget. It stated, the government has taken some decisions regarding expenditure of the fund allocated in the revenue and development budget of all government, semi-government, autonomous, state-owned companies and financial institutes.

The decisions are, purchase of all sorts of vehicles will remain suspended. This includes motor vehicles, ships as well as aircraft. In the case of urgent or essential requirement, no more than 50 per cent of the fund allocated for entertainment, tours, computers, electronics, furniture and other equipment can be spent. The same goes for training within the country.

In another circular, it has been said that expenditure on the ADP projects must be based on priority. For this, categories A, B and C categories have been created. However, ministries, departments, other organisations as well as their sub-offices and agencies will continue implementing identified projects on priority basis.

In case of projects falling under category B, not more than 75 per cent of the allotment can be spent keeping aside the reserved 25 per cent from the government’s portion. But, fund approval for category C projects will remain suspended for the time being.

Meanwhile, the expenditure on the honorarium of different committees under the development projects have been said to suspended as well. Plus, all kinds of projects and activities being implemented under the government's own funding and development budget or of semi-government, autonomous, state-owned companies and financial institutes, can no longer spend on import.

All government employees were getting handsome allowances by taking part in the meetings of Project Implementation Committee (PIC), Project Steering Committee (PSC), Departmental Project Evaluation Committee (DPEC) Special Project Evaluation Committee (SPEC) and Departmental Special Project Evaluation Committee (DSPEC) till now.