Govt halts ministries’ DDWP project approval under IMF conditions

ISLAMABAD: The government has placed a moratorium on the approval of development projects by the Departmental Development Working Party (DDWP) of ministries in order to comply with the conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The DDWP is authorised to approve development projects worth up to Rs1.5 billion. Earlier, this limit was Rs2 billion, which was slashed down.

The Central Development Working Party is authorised to approve projects up to Rs7.5 billion. The project, exceeding the value of Rs7.5 billion, is referred to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for approval from the competent forum for execution.

The IMF sought the imposition of this moratorium on the approval of the projects by DDWP mainly because the ministries and their Principal Accounting Officers engaged into approving the projects at DDWP levels without proper scrutiny and evaluation of the projects.

Under the IMF programme, the planning ministry issued instructions to all ministries concerned to slap a moratorium on approval of the projects by the DDWP. All these projects are required to be submitted before the Planning Commission’s Central Development Working Party (CDWP) for approval.