Ecnec approves emergency plan for polio eradication

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker government through newly constituted Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) has approved third time the revised project of the emergency plan for polio eradication with cost overrun for a period of three years despite its own stipulated timeframe of a few months till holding of the next general elections.

In another classic example of cost and time overrun in developmental history of the country, the cost of the project was envisaged at $326.8 million from 2012-2015, which went up to $638 million in first revision from 2016-18, second revision $986 million and now in third revision it has gone up to $1.784 billion for 2022-2026. In rupee term the cost has gone up from Rs32.2 billion to Rs64 billion and then to Rs110 billion and now it escalated to Rs513.16 billion.

The sorry state of affairs does not end here. Now the Ecnec was told that the forum took up the summary at a total cost of $1,784.90 million all foreign aid subject to compliance of the CDWP decisions. The Planning Commission’s Central Development Working Party (CDWP) had taken a decision that provinces shall prepare their own PC-Is within one year so that further ownership of the programme implementation may be shifted to the provinces with their own responsibility to acquire loan and liability to pay back directly.

In order to achieve the objective of polio programme, there is need to review and revise the implementation strategy whereby the provincial and sub provincial health departments, instead of UNICEF and WHO, are made optimally inclusive in implementation of project. This also requires formulation of provincial PC-Is by the respective health departments and their approval by the Provincial PDWPs before onward consideration and approval by the federal government.

Meanwhile, during the interim period, the federal government’s PC-I may continue for a period of one year to avoid interruption of services.

However, Secretary Ministry of Health informed through official communication requested seeking revision of the ECNEC decision to extend the umbrella PC-I duration to three years aligning it with the IsDB loan agreement instead of the initially specified one year, and assigning the responsibility back to UNICEF and WHO for support in the implementation of project interventions instead of the provinces.

During the meeting, it was also raised how the donors could dictate policy implementation issues as they should be concerned about the repayment of their loans. However, different excuses were presented before the Ecnec which ultimately granted the nod. Now the ECNEC granted its approval for duration of umbrella PC-1 for three years with authorization to Economic Affairs Division (EAD) to enter into loan agreements to finance project.

According to official statement issued here on Monday stating that Caretaker Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs and Privatisation Dr Shamshad Akhtar chaired the meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec).

The Ecnec considered and approved project of Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations & Coordination titled “Emergency Plan for Polio Eradication(3rd revised)” at a cost of USD 1784.93 million including grant from GPEI partners of USD 1197.93 million, Islamic Development Bank loan of USD 552 million and AFD loan of USD 35 million. The project will supply polio eradication vaccines all over Pakistan and will be executed by WHO and UNICEF. The Ecnec after discussion extended the duration of umbrella PC-1 of the project to three years with authorization to EAD to enter into loan agreements to finance the project on behalf of government of Pakistan to achieve the objectives of eradication of Polio and make polio free Pakistan.

The Ecnec requested Planning Commission and Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination to provide project/programme evaluation of Polio Eradication programme and integrated lesson learnt in implementation of Phase –III.

The Ecnec also directed that a committee co-chaired by the Secretary Finance and Secretary EAD to examine the re-lending arrangements with provinces for funding of project of similar nature with clear recommendation to ensure proper implementation of the projects.