PHOTO: EXPRESS
During a meeting of the Priorities Committee, government agencies and departments put forward a “wish list” of Rs1.8 trillion for carrying out work on development projects in next fiscal year 2017-18, said Minister of Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal on Monday while responding to queries of The Express Tribune.
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The Priorities Committee, an inter-ministerial body that gauges needs of different departments, held meetings last week. The purpose was to shape the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for 2017-18, beginning July 1, which will be the last year of the five-year term of PML-N government.
The Priorities Committee places its recommendations for the development budget in front of the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC). The APCC then gives its proposals to the National Economic Council, which is headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and has representation from all federating units.
Iqbal said the government was also eager to complete all projects that it initiated in the past four years, but the demand for Rs1.8 trillion could not be met. “The matter will now go to the prime minister and a meeting may take place next week,” he said.
For the next fiscal year, the Ministry of Finance has earmarked only Rs700 billion for core development needs, which may create problems for the ministries that do not have a say at the highest level.
“In our view, an allocation of Rs1 trillion for core development budget will be sufficient to meet financing needs of these projects next year,” said the minister. “Exact size of the envelope will be clear next week.”
The Rs700-billion indicative development budget is only 6.9% higher than the outgoing fiscal year’s core development outlay of Rs655 billion. These amounts do not include allocations for security and prime minister’s special schemes, which are shown as part of the development budget to claim higher development spending.
However, the demand of the ministries is reasonable keeping in view the fact that the outstanding portfolio of approved projects runs into trillions of rupees. To reap economic and social benefits of these projects, the ministries need hefty allocations.
In Pakistan, on an average, each project takes 12 to 21 years due to financing constraints, bureaucratic mismanagement and ill-planning, according to a study carried out during the tenure of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
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The situation worsened after the PML-N government approved new mega projects in the energy and infrastructure sectors to meet the infrastructure deficiencies.
For the next fiscal year, the National Highway Authority (NHA) has demanded Rs700 billion including Rs500 billion for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects. For the outgoing year, the government had allocated Rs192 billion for the NHA. The total cost of CPEC projects currently under construction in the public sector is Rs1.2 trillion, of which the spending till June last year was only Rs180 billion, according to the planning ministry.
At the time of last budget announcement, the planning minister had sought roughly Rs350 billion for CPEC projects, but got only Rs129.8 billion.
Similarly, the Ministry of Water and Power is seeking Rs231 billion for various projects in the new fiscal year. Iqbal said over 10,000 megawatts of energy projects would start production from May 2017 to June 2018, which would help end load-shedding next year. He insisted that power outages were not as worst as during the PPP tenure.
However, contrary to the minister’s claim, urban areas are facing 8 to 10 hours of load-shedding while in rural areas the duration is 10 to 12 hours.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 18th, 2017.
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