Slow utilisation of funds

The govt allocated Rs650 billion for development spending but barely Rs270 billion have so far been utilised

Federal Minister Asad Umar has made disclosures about bureaucracy that it is passing over the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan to undertake development schemes. It is natural that under a democratic dispensation, recommendations for uplift plans come from people’s representatives. The revelations have not come as a surprise to those conversant with the bureaucracy’s habit of putting a spoke in the wheel. The irony is that there is no paucity of funds. In the nine months of this fiscal, a mere 42% of the budgetary allocation has been spent. For the current fiscal, the government has allocated Rs650 billion for development spending but barely Rs270 billion have so far been utilised. The slow spending has stalled such important schemes as Covid-related programmes, Diamer-Bhasha Dam, Greater Karachi Water Supply, and Kachchi Canal projects. Schemes under the PSDP for the ongoing year too are facing marked slowness in their execution.

This situation has led even the prime minister to suspect the bureaucracy being involved in efforts to tarnish the image of the government. The bureaucracy denies the charge. However, the annoyingly slow utilisation of the allocated funds tells a different story. The housing ministry has spent only Rs1.7 billion out of its total allocation of Rs9.6 billion; the Power Division has spent Rs1.2 billion from the allocation of Rs12 billion; and the health ministry has utilised only Rs2.6 billion against the allocation of Rs11.6 billion. The ministry of water resources is the most glaring example of the sloth in spending of funds: it has spent a mere Rs18 billion out of the allotted fund of Rs66 billion, and similar is the case with the Diamer-Bhasha Dam project where only Rs1.3 billion have been spent out of the allocated Rs16 billion. This is a serious failing in a country faced with increasing water shortage.

There is a need for the bureaucracy to reform itself in line with democratic aspirations of the people. Officials should realise that being public servants they are to serve the people, not their political masters as had been the case during the British rule.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28th, 2021.

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