{"id":1141,"date":"2026-05-14T10:50:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T10:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2026-05-14T10:50:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T10:50:06","slug":"ministry-of-finance-rejects-misleading-reports-of-dar-taking-over-budget-making-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=1141","title":{"rendered":"Ministry of Finance rejects \u2018misleading\u2019 reports of Dar taking over budget-making process"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Finance on Thursday dismissed reports that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif handed the budget-making process to Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, calling the claims \u201cfactually incorrect\u201d and \u201cmisleading\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ministry of Finance strongly rejects the misleading and speculative impression created by the Express Tribune<\/em> story titled \u2018PM hands budget-making to Dar\u2019, published on May 14, 2026,\u201d read the clarification. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The ministry said that the story \u201cincorrectly portrays the constitution of a high-level review committee by the Prime Minister as a \u2018handover\u2019 of the budget-making process from the Finance Division or as a \u2018sidelining\u2019 of the finance minister\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis interpretation is factually incorrect, misleading and does not reflect the actual mandate or functioning of the committee,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The ministry informed that the committee constituted has been tasked with reviewing and analysing certain tax policy proposals prepared by the Tax Policy Office in the context of the upcoming budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch consultative and inter-ministerial review mechanisms are neither unusual nor extraordinary, \u201c it said.<\/p>\n

The ministry was of the view that the prime minister, as head of the government, \u201cis fully within his constitutional and administrative authority to seek broader input from relevant cabinet members before finalisation of tax proposals that may impact businesses, inflation, investment climate and the wider economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

It reiterated that \u201cat no stage has the budget-making process been shifted away from the Ministry of Finance or the Finance Division\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added that the preparation of the federal budget continues to be undertaken by the Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.<\/p>\n

The ministry said that Aurangzeb is also a member of the committee constituted by the prime minister and continues to lead Pakistan\u2019s engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions on all budgetary and macroeconomic matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimilarly, the committee relating to enforcement measures has been formed only to refine and strengthen revenue administration and enforcement proposals in consultation with relevant stakeholders.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch coordination mechanisms are a normal feature of governance and fiscal management,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

The ministry said that the federal budget remains a collective constitutional and cabinet-driven exercise with the Ministry of Finance playing its central and mandated institutional role.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ministry expects responsible sections of the media to avoid speculative interpretations and to report institutional processes with accuracy, context and due professional responsibility,\u201d it concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Finance on Thursday dismissed reports that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif handed the budget-making process to Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, calling the claims \u201cfactually incorrect\u201d and \u201cmisleading\u201d. \u201cThe Ministry of Finance strongly rejects the misleading and speculative impression created by the Express Tribune story titled \u2018PM hands budget-making to Dar\u2019, published on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}