Govt spent Rs18b on small development schemes

ISLAMABAD: The government has utilised around Rs18 billion for Prime Minister’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) programme to execute small development schemes for the ruling party MNAs out of total allocated amount of Rs24 billion for the last fiscal year ending June 30, 2019.

At a time when the budget deficit is touching historic 8.5 percent of GDP and utilisation of development funds both at federal and provincial levels has witnessed a decrease, the PM’s discretionary SDGs programme has utilised maximum amount in the shortest time-frame of the last fiscal year.

Around 80 to 85 percent funds have been utilised for the controversial SDGs programme despite the fact that it was started in the second half (Jan-June) of last financial year 2018-19. Practically the SDGs programme came on the ground in the last quarter (April-June) of the last financial year.

When contacted, a top functionary of government told this reporter that under the scheme, a committee comprising 20 citizens recommended small development schemes related to education, health, clean drinking water, gas, electrification and others to deputy commissioner (DC) and all DCs would be required to dispatch schemes to respective provincial Communication and Works Department (C&W) or respective federal ministry.

The PC-1 will be prepared to scrutinize projects. This time, he said, the government granted permission for purchase of equipment through the discretionary funding but barred any administrative expenses from these funds such as no function or inauguration of the project would be allowed to meet expenses from these funds.

However, there is a need to ascertain on the ground how much funds have been effectively utilised for these development schemes because in the past such programmes were notorious to get political clout in the constituencies of ruling party parliamentarians.

“Although the reconciled figures of utilization of funds have not yet been finalised, initial estimates suggested that PM’s SDGs programme spent out Rs17-18 billion out of total allocated amount of Rs24 billion,” top official sources confirmed to The News.

When contacted, top official sources said the reconciled spending on SDGs programme would be available probably by September 2019; however, they claimed that the Planning Commission sent out an official communication to all ministries/divisions concerned to share cash plan/work plan prior to seek releases of allocated funding for the current fiscal year.

“So far, we have not received any request from the Cabinet Division to release the funding for PM’s SDGs programme,” said the sources. The government has allocated Rs24 billion for this program during the current fiscal year.

At a time when the development spending witnessed low utilization in the last fiscal year both at federal and provincial levels , it is amazing that the SDGs programme managed maximum utilisation in the shortest span of time. Even after revised downward PSDP allocation to Rs675 billion, the total utilisation has been estimated at Rs550 to Rs575 billion, indicating a possible low utilisation of Rs100 to Rs125 billion for the last financial year.

Although, the sources said PM Imran Khan was not much enthusiastic about this programme as once he had told the planning managers that if need arose they should slash down funding of SDGs programme during the current fiscal year.

A summary approved by the Federal Cabinet under chairmanship of PM Imran Khan in last fiscal year had stated that the government launched Pak MDGs Community Development Programme in financial year 2014-15 and 2015-16. Then a programme namely Prime Minister’s SDGs Achievement Programme for 2016-17 and 2017-18 was approved by the cabinet through targeted interventions. This programme was supervised by a steering committee under the chairmanship of Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.

Only Punjab had agreed to contribute 50 percent of the cost of scheme (during the tenure of PML-N led regime. While in Punjab, except for electrification and provision of gas, other projects were executed by the respective provincial departments. In case of other three provinces, schemes approved under this programme were executed directly by various federal agencies.

A total amount of Rs75.137 billion was released during these two fiscal years of 2016-17 and 2017-18 to various federal agencies and Punjab government. An allocation of Rs5 billion was made initially for the current fiscal year for the programme which has since been withdrawn by the Planning Commission as per revised PSDP 2018-19.

The Cabinet Division summary further states that in order to ensure transparency, accountability and preclude the chances of financial indiscipline, it was envisaged in the programme that third party audit would be conducted. However, no audit was carried out. Lately, on the request of Cabinet Division, made in August 2018, Auditor General of Pakistan initiated special audit of the programme.

The Planning Commission formulated a concept paper for launch of similar programme titled SDGs Achievement Programme and shared with the Cabinet Division.

The summary further states that it is important to undertake that the common perception regarding the last two earlier programmes was that because of small size of schemes undertaken through this programme and their wide range geographical spread they could not be adequately monitored and did not have significant social and economic impact.

This reporter sent out a question to head of steering committee of SDGs program Naeem Ul Haq who is also PM’s special aide for inquiring about utilisation of SDGs funding but got no response till filing of this report.