Spanner in the works: Local govt service delivery a non-starter

Representatives unable to utilise funds; P&D, finance caught in tussle

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, which claims to have taken the lead in local government (LG) elections, is still dragging its feet in service delivery to the public.

LG representatives, elected about eight months ago, have not utilised a single penny from development funds earmarked in the annual development programme (ADP) for the current fiscal year.

The elected representatives call it a failure on part of the provincial government. Insiders in the provincial government’s finance department, planning and development (P&D) department, and the local government and rural development department also confirmed issues on the provincial level that led to the delay in the fund utilisation.

Money to be spent

“Not a single rupee of the ADP earmarked for districts has been utilised by local bodies so far,” said a senior official of the P&D department.

The government reserved Rs30.2 billion for the districts, half of which has been released to all the districts.

The finance department issued budget rules for all tiers of the LG. The P&D department also issued guidelines under which development funds are to be used and projects are to be implemented. However, the government machinery needed for running the businesses has not been provided.

The finance and P&D departments continue to disagree over staff who need to be deployed at the district offices, said insiders familiar with the matter. This has further delayed the delivery of services by councillors and nazims.

“The districts lack finance, the P&D set-up and infrastructure [dating back to 2001-2002] which was wrapped up when the Local Government Act 2012 was introduced,” said the P&D official. He added not a single district’s ADP could be approved because of the lack of a P&D set-up. “The districts have only made sector-wise allocations but could not make scheme-wise allocations.”

The P&D and finance conundrum

The P&D department is organised at a district level, comprising a district planning officer (BS-19), deputy district planning officer (BS-18), planning officer (BS-17) and technical officer (BS-17) – one each along with seven statistical officers (BS-17) at divisional districts and support staff. The department has sent statement of new expenditures (SNE) for the posts, to which the finance department has not responded.

“We have sent two reminders to the finance department but there has been no response from them as yet,” said the official. The P&D insider said they have extra officials who can be posted in the districts.

An insider in the finance department said, “Finance has objections over the district planning and development officer, who will be a grade-19 employee, and will report to the deputy commissioner, a grade-18 official.” The finance department wants the post of district planning and development officer to be at grade-18.

Ayaz Khan, the finance department budget officer-11, who deals with P&D department, refused to comment saying, “It is a departmental issue. Therefore, I have no comments.”

Wrangling a promotion

P&D has senior officials in grade-17 and grade-18 who have not been promoted for over two decades due to a lack of proper service structure. The department wants to place these officials on the district planning and development officers’ slots at grade-19.

“The district planning and development officers will be managing an amount of roughly Rs2 billion earmarked for each district, and approving over 4,000 development schemes. Therefore, giving the grade-19 post to them is not unreasonable,” the P&D official said. “The DC, although a grade-18 officer, actually has the powers of grade-19.”

The official maintained once the P&D set-up is established at the district level, it would start training staff as well as elected representatives to help get schemes approved and developing them. However, finance deputy secretary Hameedur Rehman said, “The matter is under consideration and will be resolved soon.”

The local government secretary could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2016.