Pakistan seeks US budgetary support

Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 November 1999 05:00 Written by Administrator Tuesday, 31 March 2009 10:30

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has asked the Obama Administration to bifurcate $1.5 billion assistance per annum for Islamabad into the budgetary support as well as for the social sector projects, in order to extend its help both for the government and people of Pakistan, it is reliably learnt.

Pakistan has proposed to the US for providing $800 million as budgetary support while remaining $700 million for the projects, which will be executed through USAID, mainly for social sector out of total $1.5 billion per annum assistance package announced by the President Obama.

The last Bush administration had abandoned budgetary support for Islamabad in the last two years by restricting its annual assistance for the development projects through USAID. In the first three years, the Bush regime had extended its annual $600 million in shape of $300 million as budgetary support and remaining $300 million as Foreign Military Grants (FMG).

“Now we are pursuing Washington to bifurcate its upcoming annual $1.5 billion assistance both for the budgetary support as well as for projects through USAID,” a high-level official of Pakistan’s embassy in Washington told The News on Sunday.

The official said that the Foreign Relation Committee would start hearing about its upcoming assistance for Pakistan from Monday and procedural requirements would take one and half month to get through the legislation process. “Pakistan’s assistance is expected to be received from the next financial year, starting from July 2009,” added the official.

The official said that it was not yet known in which shape the US is going to extend its support for Pakistan. However, it is the desire of Islamabad to provide it the budgetary support of $800 million per annum from the next fiscal year, added the official.

Pakistan’s embassy in the US, the official said, is hardly pursuing Islamabad’s case before the Obama administration in order to convince them for providing support in accordance with the objectives outlined by the incumbent regime.

Sharing break-up of the total US assistance to the tune of over 10 billion to Islamabad in the aftermath of 9/11 scenario, the country was going to receive around $5 billion as reimbursement against expenditures already incurred by Islamabad for continuation of war in tribal areas, adjacent to the war torn Afghanistan.

Against a total bilateral assistance of $5 billion, Islamabad has so far received $297 million every year since 2003-04 to 2007-08 in shape of Foreign Military Grants (FMG). There are service charges being cut down by the US authorities to tune of $3 million every year. The total amount in shape of FMG received by Pakistan was around $1.3 billion till 2007-08.

The US had also promised to provide $3 billion in the shape of budgetary support to Pakistan out of which Islamabad received $300 million per annum. The budgetary support has been shifted towards projects going on under US from the current fiscal year.

The official said Pakistan is paying a heavy price after becoming the front line state in ongoing war against terror.

Courtesy: The News