KARACHI:The Sindh government is set to launch the World Bank-supported Medium Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) and Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Management Legislation (FRDML).
In this regard, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah presided over a joint meeting of the World Bank experts and finance department team. The World Bank (WB) was represented by Economist Ms Mehwish Ashraf, Led Economics Fernando Blanco and Consultant Ariel Melamud while finance department’s five-member team was led by Secretary Finance Najam Shah.
The Sindh Chief Minister said that the objective to strengthen Sindh’s fiscal planning through preparation of MTFF was to support budget preparation and improve resource allocation. He added that the adoption of fiscal responsibility and debt management legislation would enhance credibility and predictability of the fiscal policy.
The WB Economists said MTFF was an instrument to fiscal planning which would facilitate a more effective resource allocation as it was a tool that integrates policy of objectives with public resources allocation decisions under a multi-year framework.
Finance Secretary Najam Shah said that MTFF would improve the consistency of resource availability, expenditure needs, resource allocations and medium term fiscal restrictions. He added that the finance department, under the guidelines of the chief minister, had prepared a framework in consultation with the WB experts.
He told the chief minister that his team was examining the existing rules and would suggest necessary legislation to launch MFF and fiscal responsibility and debt management.
The chief minister said that his objective was to introduce fiscal policy under which non-development expenditures could be controlled by creating more fiscal space for social sector.