Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed on Tuesday said a practical Annual Development Program (ADP) will be undertaken in the budget for FY26, asserting that the budget will not be implemented through hefty borrowings from banks and printing money.
“We’ll more or less implement the budget and there will be no such big gap. We’ll implement the new ADP through a practical approach. We’ll not implement these through creating mega projects or through hefty borrowings leading to deficits,” he said.
The finance adviser was responding to the queries of reporters after chairing a meeting of the Advisers Council Committee on Government Purchase held at the Secretariat on Tuesday.
Salehuddin said that the interim government would not implement the next budget through making hefty borrowings from banks or through printing money.
“There may be some deficit. But, to minimize that we’re negotiating with the World Bank and IMF regarding support and that is more or less successful.”
When asked about the promulgation of ordinance on Monday night abolishing the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and thus creating two separate entities, he said that there will be no impact of this on revenue collection.
“So far the revenue collection has witnessed a 2% growth compared to last year and the scenario is not disappointing. I’m expecting more while the revenue collection won’t be less than the previous year,” he added.
Replying to another question on the latest ordinance, the finance adviser suggested all for properly going through the ordinance, adding that the new policy division would be a small division while there is nothing to worry about the revenue authority.
He said it is international practice that the policy division and the implementation division would not remain the same as policy division is being run globally through professionals and experts like they have to have sound knowledge on economics, statistics and GDP.
Mentioning that the ordinance has been promulgated after a thorough process, the Finance adviser said that the issue was earlier discussed with the NBR members.
The NBR has been dissolved and replaced with two new divisions under the Ministry of Finance in a bid to modernise tax administration and boost revenue collection.
The restructuring took place through an ordinance promulgated Monday night.
Under the “Revenue Policy and Revenue Management Ordinance 2025”, the government will establish the Revenue Policy Division and the Revenue Management Division.
The policy division will design tax laws, set rates, and oversee international tax treaties, while the management division will look after enforcement, audits, and compliance for income tax, VAT and customs.
