K-P again in throes of a financial crunch

Provincial govt expected to freeze work on several schemes

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government is once again facing a financial crunch in the wake of “irrational calculations and demands”.

“The government is going to drop a number of schemes from the Annual Development Programme (ADP) 2016-17 to stabilise the province’s financial health,” said a senior official of the K-P finance department requesting anonymity.



“The finance department is not faring well. We are definitely facing a financial crunch,” said the official. According to the official, the department’s revenue stood at around Rs70 billion in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2016-17 against an expenditure of more than Rs100 billion mark in the same period.

Last week the chief minister held a meeting with officials concerned in which the matter of dropping schemes from the ADP was discussed, the official said.

A senior official of the P&D department confirmed that the government would freeze work on an unspecified number of schemes.

The ADP has just 260 new development schemes out of a total of 1,531 with an estimated cost of Rs21.5 billion.



The finance department released 25 percent of funds for all development schemes in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. “The finance department is yet to release funds for the second quarter … funds should have been released on October 1,” he said.

“The situation was created because of irrational calculations and irrational demands. If the government fails to … control its expenditures, we will be in trouble,” the official said.

The finance department, he said, had insisted on capping the ADP at Rs69 billion at the time of budget making, but the figures escalated “just to ensure political gains”.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2016.