Pakistan’s Imran Khan government has banned creation of newposts, purchase of all vehicles, rationalised utilities spending, provision ofone newspaper and decided to keep other expenditures at the bare minimum underits austerity drive for the current fiscal year, said media reports.

According to media reports, the increasing budget deficit isa major concern for the Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government under the IMF programme.Its campaign to deal with the financial emergency failed to yield any positiveresults during the last financial year 2018-19, when the budget deficitescalated to highest ever absolute figures.

The government has already banned provision of refreshmentssuch as tea or biscuits during official meetings, causing some consternation asofficial meetings often go on for hours creating problems for people withhealth problems.

However, ignoring the criticism, the Ministry of Finance onFriday issued an Office Memorandum (OM) announcing more austerity measures forfinancial year 2019-20 with immediate effect. Under the new order:

(i) There will be a complete ban on purchase of all types ofvehicles (excluding motorcycles) both for current as well as developmentexpenditure.

(ii) Creation of new posts will be banned except thoserequired for development projects and approved by the competent authority.

(iii) Entitlement of periodical, magazines, newspapers etcof entitled officers will remain restricted to only one.

(iv) Principal Accounting Officers (PAOs) will ensurerationalised utility consumption i.e. electricity, gas, telephone, water etcand the expenditure on purchase of assets, repair & maintenance andother operational expenditure shall be kept at bare minimum level whileremaining within the budgetary allocation for the financial year.

(v) Two sides of paper shall be used in all officialcommunications.