Planning ministry submits false record of development spending

PAC threatens to hold top aides responsible for breach of parliamentary privilege

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee threatened to hold top officials of the planning ministry responsible for a breach in the privilege of parliament after they submitted a false record of development spending, which put a spotlight on non-professionalism and intrigues in the ministry.

Due to ill-preparedness of the planning ministry, presentation of conflicting figures of development expenditures and a feeble defence, the PAC, which acts as parliament’s watchdog, had to defer the discussion on the agenda.

Ministry of Planning and Development Secretary Shoaib Siddiqui and Ministry’s consultant on Public Sector Development Programme Asif Sheikh had to apologise time and again. But their remorsefulness was not enough to pacify visibly perturbed members of the Parliament.



Even the members belonging to the treasury benches could not say a word in the defence of the planning ministry due to its extremely poor presentation. The PAC had called the planning ministry to get a detailed briefing on the status of the federally-funded projects, their budgetary allocations and delays in execution of the schemes.

As Sheikh began his presentation, PAC Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah objected over inclusion of 420 new projects in the PSDP despite pendency of 582 ongoing projects. Sheikh informed the PAC that the federally-funded PSDP was comprised of 1,022 projects and out of these 420 were new schemes.

Sheikh said that out of Rs866 billion allocation for total 1,022 projects for current fiscal year, a sum of Rs536 billion was allocated to ongoing schemes and Rs149 billion for new schemes. He did not mention the Rs4.3 trillion cost of these projects in his presentation, which he disclosed only after the PAC chairman asked.

He also did not mention the cost of Rs1.32 trillion new schemes, which again Khursheed Shah pointed out.

“The major flaw in the planning ministry’s working is that it starts new projects despite having very little budget for the ongoing schemes,” said Shah. He said that due to approval of new schemes, the ongoing projects face cost overruns, which is equal to wastage of public money and loans obtained for these projects.

The total resources required for completing ongoing and new projects were Rs5.7 trillion and at the current level of allocations the government would need about seven years to complete them, said Shah.

Things for the planning ministry started turning bad, as Sheikh started project-wise briefing. He picked Karachi Green line metro project for briefing but failed to move forward after the PAC found glaring flaws in project allocations and actual spending numbers.

The working of the planning ministry has brought a bad name for not only the government but also for the state, said Sheikh Rohail Asghar of the PML-N. Another PML-N legislator, Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang was also extremely unhappy with the planning ministry’s working.

In a desperate attempt to defend his bad performance, Sheikh claimed that the difference between the development spending figures was because of budgetary estimates presented to parliament and the actual work on ground.

This created more problems for him, as Khursheed Shah said that presenting documents to the parliament on assumptions for approval is tantamount to misleading.

Finance Secretary Shahid Mehmood also took an exception to the statement given by Sheikh. “The budget is not made on assumption and mismatch between the planning ministry’s statistics was because the ministry did not put hard work in preparation of the presentation,” said Mehmood who was sitting next to planning secretary.

How did the planning ministry reach here?

Over the years, the planning ministry is run in project-mode due to personal likes and dislikes, which compromised the quality of work done by various wings of the ministry.



For the past 11 years, the work of Public Investment Programming - the core function of the Planning Division, is being performed by a project, Institutional Strengthening and Efficiency Enhancement project, headed by Sheikh himself. This severely compromised the working of the PIP section, as everything in planning ministry rests in Sheikh.

Sheikh is now above 70 years old and cannot be employed under any government rule due to maximum employment age of 65. Technically, his project has ended since July but still the secretary planning is not completing procedural formalities.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th, 2017.

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