Unexamined expenditure of Tk. 8,000 crore

SECTION 233 (4) of the Rules of Procedure of the Jatiya Sangsad provides the Public Accounts Committee of the House with sweeping authority over the supplementary budget. This section categorically says if any money has been spent on any service during a financial year in excess of the amount granted by the House for that purpose, the committee shall examine with reference to the facts of each case the circumstances leading to such an excess and make such recommendation as it may deem fit.
But the Public Accounts Committee was once again denied the right to examine the additional expenditure of more than Tk. 8,000 crore by 35 ministries and divisions in the current financial year. The parliament was made to pass on Monday the supplementary budget for the current financial year of 2013-14 legalising the excess expenditure by those ministries and divisions. The committee made no move to examine the excess expenditure since the supplementary budget was placed in parliament on last Thursday. The government was also silent about it.  
In fact, the additional expenditure stipulated in the supplementary budget was passed hurriedly. The House held a discussion over the supplementary budget for only four hours before it was passed. So, the reasons behind the excess expenditure remained unknown. The ministries and divisions did not need to justify the additional expenditure. And the House could not know whether they were justified.
This provision has existed in the rules of procedure since 1974. But it was never exercised to allow the Public Accounts Committee to examine excess expenditure by the ministries and divisions. This culture has been benefiting the successive governments over the decades as they have not been made accountable to the parliament through the Committee for the excess expenditure.   
The successive governments have remained silent about allowing the committee to examine the excess expenditure. Similarly, the parliament has also refrained from taking any step to exercise its authority through the Committee. MPs have never spoken for sending the supplementary budget to the Public Accounts Committee.   
Is this the way we are strengthening parliamentary democracy and turning the House into focal point of all activities? By making the parliament unable to keep effective control over the public money, how will the government ensure proper utilisation of budgetary allocations?

The writer is Senior Reporter, The Daily Star.