K-P government seeks timely completion of projects

Agreement reached on reducing project completion timeframe to four and a half years

PESHAWAR: Different institutions of the provincial government have developed a disagreement over the timeframe for completing development projects with the government pushing to reduce the time required from six years to four years to ensure that they are completed during their tenure before the next general elections.

Moreover, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has slashed the throw-forward from Rs470 billion to just Rs165 billion for the upcoming financial year 2019-20.

According to the government’s budget documents, available with The Express Tribune, the provincial government is seeking to expedite the completion of development projects in the province by reducing the timeframe for projects from six years to just four years.

However, it has run into some resistance from provincial institutions who disagreed at first but later agreed on a timeframe of 4.5 years.

The provincial government had listed a throw-forward from past projects at Rs470 billion in the annual development programme (ADP). The provincial government had listed an allocation of Rs85 billion for it in the next fiscal while the departments had suggested to slash it by Rs211 billion.

However, after consulting with other branches of the provincial government and institutions, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led provincial government — which is eyeing a surplus budget — decided to settle for cutting the throw-forward by Rs165 billion.

In the financial year 2012-13, the throw-forward was Rs197 billion of the total development outlay. The incoming PTI government, though, only set Rs73 in the current expenditure for the financial year and passed on 124 billion to the next financial year.

As a result, it pushed back the duration of certain projects by 19 months. By the fiscal year 2014-15, the throw-forward had increased to Rs329 billion, But the provincial government decided to release only Rs98 billion towards it and transferred Rs231 billion to the subsequent financial year.

In the financial year 2015-16 the ADP throw-forward rose to Rs432 billion, while only Rs113 billion was allocated for it and Rs319 billion was transferred to next year financial year. By the fiscal year 2016-17, the throw-forward had swelled to Rs629 billion but the provincial government only released Rs91 billion for it.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2019.