Inspection Commission: Panel asks prime minister to review unfeasible projects

Average project completion period increases from 10 years to 21 years.

ISLAMABAD:

The Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC) has called for reprioritisation of over one-third of development projects, as average project completion period has alarmingly increased to 21 years due to scarcity of resources and political meddling in approval process.

PMIC has sought the intervention of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to immediately correct the mistakes of the past, some of which occurred during his tenure. PMIC blue print of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) demands urgent action from the highest office to save billions of rupees of taxpayers that are lost every year while succumbing to political pressures at the approval stage. There are 1,853 projects in PSDP with a total estimated cost of Rs4.4 trillion.

“A number of unfeasible projects have been approved in the past,” finds PMIC. However, the summary is silent about the officials who approved these projects. It has proposed constitution of a “high-powered committee” to review these projects under the chairmanship of the finance minister with officials from the finance ministry, Planning Commission and PMIC as members.

The committee’s composition also raises questions about the impartiality of these officials who earlier approved some of the projects. The only neutral person is PMIC Chairman Malik Amjad Noon, who by designation is not involved in the process.

The summary, tabled last Saturday for the consideration of the prime minister, states that after a detailed review of only 64 projects it was found that their cost have already increased by a whopping Rs182 billion, which is even more than the development allocation for the outgoing fiscal year.

In view of the “current financial landscape and existing resource constraints, 666 projects which have incurred less than 20 per cent of their cost need to be prioritised,” states the summary.

Since the Musharraf era, the Planning Commission has become a mere project approval authority and even these projects have not been evaluated on merit. In 2008 when the Gilani-led coalition government took over, the average project completion period was 10 years that has now gone up to 21 years bearing in mind the current allocation, said a PMIC official involved in the review exercise.

“PMIC is of the view that the completion period of PSDP may be reduced to seven years,” the summary states.

The government is currently in the process of finalising the development budget for next fiscal year. For 2011-12, the Planning Commission has demanded Rs365 billion to complete only those schemes where 60 per cent work has already been done. Contrary to that, the finance ministry has indicated that it may provide a maximum of Rs280 billion both for ongoing and new schemes.

Delayed projects and
their cost

PMIC states that “the existing system of PSDP prioritisation, scrutiny, monitoring and evaluation is defective and inefficient.” More than 75 per cent projects are facing time overruns of about three year on average, leading to huge cost escalation running into billions of rupees.

The cost of rehabilitating the irrigation and drainage system in Sindh has increased by Rs4 billion to Rs16.8 billion besides a three-year delay. The cost of Makran Coastal Road has swelled to Rs21.2 billion, an increase of Rs6 billion and a two-year delay. The cost of Chashma Nuclear Power Plant has increased to Rs51.1 billion, an increase of Rs20 billion.

The cost of N-5 Highway rehabilitation project has increased to Rs25.9 billion, a rise of around Rs11 billion. Similarly, the cost of National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care soared to Rs53.4 billion from Rs26.5 billion with a delay of six years.

The cost of another significant project, Drought Recovery Assistance II, has swelled to Rs30 billion from Rs10 billion besides a three-year delay.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2011.