LGs to get funds from next week

LAHORE

The Punjab government Friday decided release of development and non-development funds to the local governments (LGs) without any further delay being the election year as any delay could adversely affect the political campaign.

It is expected that release of the funds would be started by the end of next week as the provincial government is not interested in its further delay.

The decision was made in a meeting on release of the resources to the local governments under Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) chaired by Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha. The meeting was attended by special secretary finance Usman Ch, Member Planning and Development Board Javeed Latif, special secretary local government Kamran Khan, public finance management expert of Sub-National Governance Faisal Rasheed, Muhammad Arshad and other officials concerned of finance and local government departments.

Earlier, release of the development resources of Rs15 billion to local governments was delayed due to decision on rural sanitation programme. The Punjab government has planned a comprehensive rural sanitation programme for the rural areas of the province in the last year of its tenure which is also an election year. All schemes related to water and sanitation play vital role in election outcome in rural areas of the Punjab.

The meeting has also decided to complete the rural sanitation programme from the chief minister special initiatives resources. Every year a substantial amount of resources are allocated under this head which are considered as block allocation and being used for such schemes. According to the white paper, this year the Punjab government has allocated Rs88.35 billion for special initiatives/programme. Besides this amount, the government has also allocated Rs57.477 billion for water supply and sanitation schemes.

The minister also instructed that no cut would be applied on development and current expenditures of the local government besides ensuring the share of urban and rural councils would be spent accordingly to their respective shares. She asked the finance department to release the shares to all local governments in accordance with the existing PFC award.

The minister also instructed that union councils will perform the duties of health and sanitation sectors with the support of their respective district councils while institutions concerned (law enforcement agencies) would be responsible for any security related emergency situation not the local governments. She instructed the finance department that no deduction in the funds of urban councils would be made for the development schemes of rural areas. The minister also instructed the secretary local government to submit the revenue and expenditures details of all the local governments to the finance department without any further delay so that work on the next PFC Award would be completed timely and amicably in accordance with their needs. She asked the local governments to bring self-finance reliability projects to increase their revenue. The provincial government will be asked to empower the local governments in the light of their recommendations and projects to increase their powers for resource mobilisation.

According to the existing PFC Award population-based formula, urban council gets 65 percent share both from allocated resources for development and current expenditures.

This year the Punjab government has allocated Rs15 billion for the development schemes of the local governments and Rs43 billion for the current expenditures. There are 35 district councils and 182 urban councils in the province.