No advance Eid salaries in K-P

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Finance Department has written a letter to the chief secretary, informing that the advance salaries and pensions cannot be paid to the government employees on Eid due to financial constraints.

According to the letter written on Tuesday, the finance department presented the details of financial difficulties, including expenditure and revenue, seeking permission from the chief secretary to pay salaries and pensions on the first working day of May.

It said that the provincial government had been facing financial difficulties for the last one year and there was Rs13 billion in the account against the total expenses of Rs45 billion.

The finance department said that the province was likely to get Rs20 to 25 billion from the federal government this month and in that case, the advance salaries and pensions could be disbursed on the first working day of the following month.

The department explained that Rs20 billion had to be paid for flour, more than Rs3 billion to hospitals for essential services, Rs4 billion for health card, Rs1 billion for law and order and Rs1.30 billion for free textbooks.

The development projects in the newly merged tribal districts were also facing a delay due to non-availability of funds.

This was revealed during a visit of the sub-committee of the Standing Committee of Senate on States and Frontier Regions.

The sub-committee assured its support to the K-P government in taking funds for the province, especially the newly merged districts, stopped by the federal government.

The committee convener Senator Dr Sania Nishter and Senator Shameem Afridi suggested e-tendering, biometric attendance of government employees and introduction of GIS system for better monitoring of schemes.

Members of the sub-committee were briefed about the tribal districts’ development portfolio procedure and utilisation of funds.

Chief Secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, Additional Chief Secretary Zubair Qureshi and other officials were present on the occasion.

Qureshi briefed the committee about the developmental schemes, expenditures, monitoring, preparation and mechanism in the merged districts.

He informed the committee that due to shortage of funds, the government was unable to carry out development work in the merged areas.

The Senate body assured to raise the funds issue faced by the provincial government in the tribal districts on a priority basis.

Last month, the caretaker government decided to take up the non-release of provincial funds under various heads with the federal government in order to resolve the issue of fiscal deficit.

In this regard, an important meeting to discuss and review the current economic situation of the province was held here with caretaker Chief Minister Muhammad Azam Khan in the chair.

The forum was briefed on the financial issues related to the federation including share of the province under National Finance Commission Award, arrears of the province under net hydel profit, food security of the province, oil and gas royalty, issues regarding water resources and other related matters.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2023.