PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is performing better among the four provinces by spending 90 percent of the allocation under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) during 2014-15, a meeting was told here on Thursday. The meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, was held at the Civil Secretariat to review the ADP 2015-16, said a handout. The meeting was told that the factors like regular periodic review of status of the schemes at the level of the chief minister and chief secretary, fast track Provincial Development Working Party (PDWP) meetings, regular internal review by the Planning and Development (P&D) department and de-centralisation of re-appropriation powers helped achieve record spending under ADP 2014-15. Highlighting the provincial government’s development performance during the previous year, the Secretary P&D department Syed Zafar Ali Shah revealed that a formal economic growth strategy was approved and implemented by the P&D, which also raised foreign assistance of Rs40 billion and managed financing of another US$154 million for the next five years from Multi-Donor Trust Fund. He added that the chief minister’s high-level dialogues with the development partners also helped achieve the targets. The meeting was informed that the provincial government had asked the federal government to include its three mega projects in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project but had not received any response yet. Secretary P&D Zafar Ali Shah said the special initiative taken by the chief minister for providing sasta (subsidized) atta and ghee to 743,201 poor families of the province had been made operational. He added that the Right to Information Commission and Right to Services Commission too had been operationalised while public-private partnership nodes were established in 13 departments to give them autonomy. The meeting was told that FY Rs 142 billion had been allocated for the ADP out of which Rs42 billion would be provided to the district governments. The PDWP had approved 164 new ADP schemes out of 204 projects. The chief minister approved constitution of the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) and directed that its first meeting should be convened on Monday to ensure release of the ADP funds to the local governments. He expressed annoyance over the delay in notifying the PFC despite completion of the election process and nominations of the commission’s members. Issuing orders to the finance and local government departments, he said that the district government must face no problems at all in receipt and utilisation of funds. He also directed the departments to ensure early completion of the ongoing and new schemes. He asked the finance department to strictly follow the release policy for ADP schemes and warned all departments and institutions of strict disciplinary action if delaying tactics were used. The chief minister asked the cabinet members to present only real picture of the ADP and other spending before the people through media and directed the P&D and Finance Department to periodically brief the cabinet members in this regard. He also directed the Information Department to coordinate between the cabinet members and the media for the talk-shows, interviews and briefings, etc. Expressing dissatisfaction over standard of works in certain districts including Mardan, he directed the C&W Department to immediately replace the engineering staff of such districts and take strict action against those responsible for substandard constructions.
