PM’s discretionary funds: MPs asked to utilise funds in 3 months

ISLAMABAD:

A steering committee of the National Assembly has directed all lawmakers – except those belonging to PTI – to submit details of development schemes in their respective constituencies and also utilise within three months the funds allocated to them as prime ministers’ discretionary fund.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on January 14 constituted a steering committee – led by MNA Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar and Chaudhry Saud Majeed – and assigned it the task to allocate Rs20 million to each MNA as the PM’s discretionary funds for development projects in their constituencies.

The said amount will be given from the allocated funds of Rs12.5 billion in federal PSDP for the financial year 2014-2015.

The steering committee on Wednesday decided that it would instruct each MNA to immediately submit details of development schemes in their concerned DCO’s offices. All relevant ministries were also directed to immediately complete the process of approval of the schemes so that the MNA’s may utilise them within three months.

The committee said the funds should be utilised before the lapse of financial year by June 2015. It asked Secretary Cabinet Babar Yaqoob and Prime Minister Office’s Additional Secretary Malik Hassan Iqbal to call on provincial secretaries of planning and development, local governments and other concerned and to take them into confidence in order to expeditiously fulfill federal government’s schemes for MNAs.

They said in the constituencies where the PTI won National Assembly seats, the development schemes will not be endorsed as the party’s MNAs submitted their resignations and have not attended the assembly since August 2014.

However, it was decided that the cabinet secretary and PM office additional secretary will finalise the procedure of carrying out the schemes during their visit to K-P.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2015.