Consultative session: KP developing public financial management reforms strategy

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is developing public financial management (PFM) reforms strategy that would strengthen governance and policy-driven planning.

It will encompass fiscal management, resources mobilization, fiscal decentralization and reforms roadmap for the entire KP, including the merged districts.

In this connection a daylong consultative session was arranged by the Finance Department in collaboration with the key line departments and development partners.

Senior officials from Finance Department, Planning & Development (P&D), Local Government KP Revenue Authority (KPRA), Excise & Taxation, KP Board of Revenue, Energy, Irrigation, Mines, Health and Education Departments attended the session.

Speaking as a keynote speaker, Secretary Finance Atif Rehman stressed that government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa always had a considerable focus on public financial management reforms.

He said the process was increasingly showing its presence in the broader agenda of KPs Government reforms strategy.

In order to achieve these ends, he said, the KP government was designing a strategy to roll out its public financial management reforms to positively impact the government functionaries.

Waqas Paracha, advisor to the sub-National Governance (SNG) Programme said that the technical aspects of reforms were well understood and agreed upon by the government and development partners.

However, he added, because of sub-optimal sequencing and flawed coordination with development partners, these reforms were not able to have the desired effects.

He said the session was arranged to discuss the challenges the KP government was facing to perform PFM core functions.

Raheel Siddiqui, the project team leader, said the SNG programme was launched in 2019.

It supported the governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Local Government in selected districts to improve the way they were governed.

He said it also backed in management of their resources for better service delivery. The Programme aims to strengthen Pakistan’s public financial management and planning system, assists the government in raising more revenue and allocating money to improve basic services, especially for the underprivileged and marginalized groups of society like minorities, women from rural areas, transgender communities and people with disabilities amongst other groups in the process.