Local government councils to get Rs49 billion

PESHAWAR: The newly-elected local government councils in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would get Rs42 billion in the 2015-16 annual budget for development work.
This was stated by the provincial Finance Minister Muzaffar Said, who belongs to the Jamaat-I-Islami, while speaking at the post-budget press conference at the Civil Secretariat on Tuesday.
He said this amount would be in addition to the Rs7 billion being spent to put in place the local government councils. The minister made it clear that the constituencies of the provincial assembly members would also continue to get share in the development funds for the projects initiated under the Annual Development Programme (ADP).
Flanked by Secretary Finance Said Badshah Bukhari and other officials, Muzaffar Said stressed that the provincial government was keen to ensure distribution of funds to the provincial assembly constituencies as well as the newly elected councils without any discrimination so that they could better serve the people.
He added that the provincial government had allocated Rs102.5 billion for the district governments to meet current expenditures, while Rs7 billion had been set aside for making the initial arrangements to make these district and local setups functional during the next fiscal.
The minister said Rs42.290 billion had been allocated for the ADP of the districts and local councils. “This constitutes 30 percent of the total development budget of the provincial government. Rs13.100 billion of the district ADP would go to village and neighbourhood councils and Rs8.580 billion to the tehsil councils,” he explained.
He said that another Rs8.580 billion would go to the districts. He added that Rs12.30 million would be transferred to the districts with the devolution of the provincial departments to the district level during the next fiscal.
About the overall budgetary allocations, the minister said that main focus remained the eradication of poverty as the government was mindful of the fact that real ‘change’ would come when the standard of life of the people changed.
He maintained that the government had worked out a relief package to be initiated from July 1 to raise the salaries of the public civil servants and increase pensions, besides merging the ad hoc relief of 2011 and 2012 in their basic salaries.
Muzaffar Said pointed out that BPS-1 to 5 employees had got two pay scale (double) upgradation and those in BPS-6 to 15 would get pay scale (one-step) upgradation.All BPS-16 employees would receive a special compensatory allowance on the basis of notional upgradation to the BPS-17, he added.
“The issue related to the upgradation of the paramedic staff would soon be resolved. A committee headed by secretary finance had been formed to finalise recommendations within six months for BPS-17 and above government servants,” the minister said.
Muzaffar Said informed the media that the provincial government would sustain burden of Rs20 billion on the upgradation, increase in salaries and other allowances of the employees that would jump up to Rs30 billion in the next few years.
He said the provincial government had submitted 19 projects worth $5,320 million under the agreement of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to be included in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).
“These schemes include 10 energy and power projects, eight irrigation schemes and construction of Swat Expressway ay,” the minister added.The minister said the proposed projects would generate about 17 megawatt electricity besides providing water for around 0.3 million acres of barren land.
He dispelled the impression that the budgetary proposals were formulated in Bani Gala (Imran Khan’s residence in Islamabad), saying that the Finance Department officials and other related quarters had been working day and night for the last six months to put together these proposals.
The minister said neither Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan interfered in the budget-making process nor he (Muzaffar) visited Bani Gala to seek ‘any such things’.Secretary for Finance Said Badshah Bukhari, while responding to questions of technical nature, said the volume of loans against the province had reached Rs121 billion and included Rs5 billion owed to the federal government and Rs116 billion foreign loans.
He said the province pre-maturely returned Rs2,500 million to the federal government during 2013-14 due to which it saved Rs691.316 million. He said for the next fiscal Rs8.637 billion has been set aside to pay the loans pre-maturely and save more money for the provincial exchequer.