Not a penny paid by US in 9 months: Tarin

ISLAMABAD (Agencies) - The United States has not paid Pakistan a single penny for the last nine months for rendering military services to fight the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance, Shaukat Tarin said on Thursday.
He said Pakistan's latest reimbursement bill of 1.35 billion dollars for flushing out militants from the region, was delayed. "We have not received any amount since May 2008," Tarin told reporters.
"Some accounting and procedural complications have delayed the release and we have asked them to pay the bill as soon as possible," he said, adding that the bills should be paid from the Coalition Support Fund.
According to Tarin, the sides negotiated the issue for months and the Washington has approved a payment of close on 1 billion dollars, while the talks for the remainder were continuing.
"Our monthly military bill stands at 150 million dollars a month and the US have agreed to release 100 million dollars while the accounting issues for the remaining 50 million dollars will be sorted out soon," he said.
Tarin said Pakistan would ask International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ease conditions on its bailout package and raise its loan quota 5 times to 8 times as the fight against Taliban militants was hurting the country's budget.
"We have to renegotiate our revised numbers with the IMF. All the revenue shortfall and other problems are because of the war on terror," he told newsmen here Thursday.
Pakistan will seek extra $4.5 billion from IMF, on top of $7.6 billion loan it negotiated in November last. The government's revenue shortfall in January was Rs 21 billion, compared with Rs 23 billion gap in six months from July to December, Tarin said. "Trade and investment are affected because of the war on terror. We are asking our friends to help us."
Shaukat Tarin said that the IMF board meeting would be held in Washington in April in which he was also participating. He added that during the meeting he would urge them to enhance the loan quota for Pakistan from present 5 times to 8 times so that we could be able to build our foreign exchange reserves besides meeting the economic needs.
The United States "stopped paying our bills for the war on terror in May 2008. We are asking them to give us relief," he said.
Pakistan would request an additional bailout package from the IMF in April, he added.
Shaukat Tarin said that government was taking measures for reducing the inflation with a view to provide relief to the people.
Regarding the Circular debt, he said it stood at Rs.160 billion and very soon good news in this regard will be announced. He added no exemption was being given on property tax.
Meanwhile, addressing the participants of one-day workshop on the Medium Term Budget Framework (MTBF) here, he said the MTBF would help promote transparency, fiscal discipline and efficiency of the government programmes, allocation and use of public sector resources.
Former Secretary General Finance Moeen Afzal, the representative of the UK-DFID David Talor and Additional Secretary Finance Ayub Tain also spoke on the occasion.
Tarin said that two main features of MTBF are: to takes a multi-year approach to budgeting and to aligns spending plans with the resources available to government and with its policy objectives.
He said that the government's top priority was to give relief to the poor and allocate more funds for development projects and social sector development. He also highlighted the government's nine-point agenda that principally focused Economic Stabilisation Plan and over all restoration of economic health in view of ongoing global financial crisis that has regional overtones.
He stressed the need for close cooperation and joint efforts by Planning Division and all stakeholders including the ministries for the implementation of the projects. He also urged the ministries and divisions to follow the MTBF guideline for the proper utilisation of the funds and within available resources.
Tarin thanked the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for its support in the implementation of the MTBF. The MTBF, he said was designed to overcome the problems being faced now. As well as improving sectoral allocation of funds, MTBF will reduce wastage of public funds, he added.
The Advisor said that it would greatly empower Line Ministries. They will have an indicative budget ceiling within which to submit budget proposals, and because they would know roughly what resources are available to them over a multi-year period, they would be better able to plan for service delivery over the medium term.
Line Ministries will have greater autonomy to decide how to allocate resources within their respective sectors. Work on implementing MTBF in Pakistan has been underway for some time.
Under a programme sponsored by the DFID 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' components have been instituted. The top-down' component promotes overall fiscal stability, lays out the government's priorities and sets budget ceilings for each ministry. The bottom-up' component helps line ministries prepare realistic spending plans, and strengthens budget execution and financial management.
Speaking on the occasion, Moeen Afzal said that the introduction of the MTBF would help modernise the budgetary process ending the 100-year old system. He expressed the hope that this process would also ensure transparency and efficiency in the budgetary system for the benefit of the country.
The representative of UKDFID David Talor assured the government of its support in the implementation of the MTBF. He said that DFID has approved a grant of 418 million pounds for three years out of which 2.9 million pound has already been paid.
Additional Secretary Budget Ayub Tarin highlighted the aims and objectives of the MTBF for the economic progress of the country.