The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has initiated a stringent measure by deciding not to release funds to departments that have failed to utilize a minimum of 90 percent of their allocated development funds over the past four months.
The Finance Department has issued a notification to the secretaries of all government departments, notifying them of this significant decision. Those departments that have fallen short of the prescribed expenditure target are now required to provide compelling reasons for their underutilization; failure to do so will result in the withholding of funds for future projects.
This move by the K-P government has been prompted by a disconcerting discovery: over the past four months since the introduction of the provincial budget, a number of government departments have failed to expend a substantial portion of the funds designated for development projects.
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An official source emphasized that departments unable to meet the 90 percent expenditure threshold from July to October will not receive development funds for the subsequent four months. This stern stance has even extended to prohibiting the allocation of funds for individual schemes.
In order to appreciate the magnitude of this financial decision, it is imperative to understand that the K-P government has already finalized a development budget amounting to Rs71 billion for the next four months. Within this budget, a substantial sum of Rs43.33 billion has been allocated for the settled districts, while Rs8.66 billion has been earmarked for the district Annual Development Program (ADP). For the newly merged districts, which have their own set of unique challenges, an allocation of Rs7 billion has been proposed for the development budget, with a further Rs1.6 billion allocated for district ADP.
An additional Rs10.33 billion has been set aside for the integrated development program in the newly merged districts. To further emphasize the government’s commitment to this policy, new development schemes are set to be entirely banned during this period, ensuring that existing projects, particularly those with foreign funding.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 23rd, 2023.
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