Budget crunch: Education and health projects at crossroads

Employees of the projects protest fearing closure.

ISLAMABAD:

The future of National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) and National Education Foundation (NEF) remains uncertain. As both the federal government and provinces did not allocate any funds in their current budgets for the continuation of these bodies.

According to the minutes of the last meeting of Implementation Commission of the 18th Amendment, held on June 2, it was stated that negotiations may be held with the provinces for adoption of useful components of both the projects.

The finance division was to liaise with the provinces to provide a partial funding mechanism for such bodies to alleviate the financial burden on the provinces. In case an arrangement could not be reached, the two organisations would be wound up after June 30, 2011. However, the component related to the federal areas shall be protected for the duration of the projects, the minutes added.

Sources said that except Sindh, the other provinces were not ready to adopt the two costly projects. One of the chief secretaries at the meeting reportedly said that they could not afford such costly projects as, even a director of these projects got packages more than those of a provincial chief secretary.The political appointees in these projects are another factor causing reluctance for their adoption by the provinces. Majority of the employees in these programmes have been appointed on political grounds and their contribution is not significant, said an official.

He added, it seemed that the future of these programmes is bleak as neither the provincial and nor the federal government have earmarked budgets for them. “These would be closed and the employees would be badly affected,” he added. Besides, taking up these programmes is a huge liability as the salaries of the employees have not been paid for the past many months in addition to other expenses,” he said.

The NCHD was set up through a presidential ordinance in 2002 to support education and healthcare, which was going to work with the government and non-governmental organisations in all the districts of Pakistan. The project closed down in August 2008, but after protests, it was revived in February 2009 for a period of three years up to June 2012.

Over 17,000 employees are working for NCHD in Pakistan. The employees have not received their salaries since January 2011.

On the other hand, NEF was initially founded through a cabinet resolution in 1994 by the PPP government. It is now an autonomous statutory body as restructured under Presidential Ordinance 2002 with its extend to to the tribal areas, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jamu and Kashmir and Islamabad Capital Territory to promote education through public-private partnership. The project has around 1,5000 Basic Education Community Schools in the country with more than 550,000 students belonging to the poorest of the families. Around 550 supervisory staff, 15,000 teachers and 500 field supervisors are serving in the project. However, there a strong protest by the employees of these two projects was also held in the fear that these projects would be closed and their professional careers would be at stake.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 14th, 2011.