LAHORE: The Chief Minister Secretariat received 11.62pc less allocation for the next year as the budget spared Rs806m – or Rs21m a day – against the revised expenditure of Rs912m last year.

       Last year, the secretariat was allotted Rs781m in the last budget, but it ended up spending Rs912m – or 16.77pc more.

       The expenditures of the secretariat came under focus two years ago when former chief minister Usman Buzdar of the PTI claimed to have reduced them by 40pc.

       The PTI government claimed credit for doing away with the “unnecessary and wasteful” expenditure.

       “The former governments mercilessly wasted national exchequer, but we are the custodians of every single penny of government resources,” former chief minister Usman Buzdar said early this year. “These habits have now been curbed.”

       Ever since the expenditures of the provincial chief executive’s secretariat have assumed political connotation and a convenient political ploy for the government to claim credit for lowering them in the national interest.

       Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2022