Pakistan’s most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken province has just seen the unveiling of its new budget for the fiscal year 2014-15. The Balochistan budget has been presented in the provincial Assembly with a Rs 215 billion deficit. What is odd is that the documents of the budget have not been revealed to the public or the media, a practice usually adhered to before or during the presentation of the budget. While this may be a simple case of governmental inefficiency, one hopes that these documents, which allow for some transparency and detail on how budgetary decisions are made, will be made public soon.For the maintenance of law and order, the law enforcement agencies have been allocated Rs 1.725 billion. What stands out about anything pertaining to law and order in this particularly volatile province is that the civilian government, headed by Chief Minister Abdul Malik Baloch, a middle-class nationalist, has absolutely nothing to do with security. These particular allocations belong to the formidable paramilitary force known as the Frontier Corps (FC), which has complete authority to spend these funds in fighting the raging insurgency in the province. The civilian government does not have any say in how this money is used and the methods deployed to quell the insurgency. This inadequacy on the part of the government of Dr Abdul Malik clearly shows that its powers are limited and that the actions of the FC do not fall under civilian control. The budget for development has been increased to Rs 50.74 billion. While an increase in development funds is always welcome, one wonders why the government of Balochistan was unable to spend five billion rupees of the development budget from the last fiscal year. Was the government’s implementation capacity so low that it could not fulfil its development plan despite having the funds? This is a stark reminder that governmental inefficiency in the province has reached such heights that the lot of the people remains troubled and disenfranchised. So much for the government of Dr Abdul Malik, a man many in Balochistan believed would bring some peace and political consensus to the restive province. It seems the point of no return has now been reached with the death of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri last week, who may have been the last hope this government had for some dialogue and peace with the insurgents. Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more apparent that this provincial government is limbless and powerless and this budget is a clear indication of that. The people are not receiving any slice of the pie whether that comes from the Saindak project or from the likes of Reko Diq. The federal government has always taken as much as 24 percent from the royalties, etc, of projects such as Saindak, leaving the province with as little as one or two percent and the people resourceless and in worse off economic conditions than before. The budget speaks of the desire of the province that Saindak and similar projects be handed over to it as the people of Balochistan have not been made stakeholders in mega development projects, including Gwadar Port. The budgetary exercise seems futile and superfluous, only presented to fulfil a ritual and nothing more. The most backward province has received a budget that has been presented inefficiently and with little for the people. It does not seem as though the times are changing for Balochistan. *