PESHAWAR: The Rs33 billion budget for the district Annual Development Programme (ADP) for Khyber-Pakhtunkwa has been slashed by 20 per cent, mayors of a number of district councils have been informed by the provincial government.
The K-P government cites unavailability of funds in the provincial exchequer as a reason for the cut. The financial crunch, however, has led to the ineffectiveness of the council’s developmental works in their constituencies.
K-P again in throes of a financial crunch
Even during the previous fiscal year, the K-P government had slashed the district ADP by 50 per cent owing to lack of financial resources and the local bodies were only given Rs15 billion against the Rs42 billion allocated in the provincial budget.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Nazim District Council Mardan Himatullah Mayar claimed that the provincial government was going to release only Rs28 billion of the total Rs33 billion allocated for the local government in the budget of the current fiscal year 2016-17.
Moreover, only 10 per cent of the total funds collected in taxes were released to the local government.
“Provincial government should have released at least 50 per cent of the total funds collected in taxes,” Mayar added.
So far, the K-P government has released over Rs14 billion for the first two quarters of the current fiscal year. The K-P government has however delayed release of the funds for both the quarters.
The budget bill was approved by the assembly in June, 2016 and the funds of over Rs7 billion for the first quarter were released in September. Furthermore, the K-P government was supposed to release funds for the second quarter in the first week of October but it was delayed and the funds were released in the last week of December.
“The government should have released funds for the third quarter in the first week of January, 2017 but it will again be delayed for over two months,” Mayar added.
The local bodies also struggle in providing salaries to the employees of the Local Council Boards in the districts.
No fresh power and energy projects approved under ADP
District Nazim Lower Dir Muhmmad Rasool Khan, a member of Jamat-e-Islami, said that the district account officers were refusing to pay salaries of the local councils because they had no proper mechanism.
He said all district mayors had time and again discussed salary issue with the LG minister Inayatullah Khan but to no avail. He added that the cut in district ADP will create problems in completion of ongoing projects.
Like other districts, Chitral too faces the issue of lack of funds.
Chitral’s district mayor Maghfirat Shah said that the council’s employees haven’t been paid salaries since June. “The mayors too have not received their honorarium for the past five months,” he added.
A senior official of the K-P LG department on condition of anonymity said that the budget was always prepared on estimates.
He claimed that last year the district ADP was slashed by 50 per cent because the provincial ADP was also slashed owing to financial crises due to inflated budgetary estimates.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 4th, 2017.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ