Diverting funds

One way of telling that elections are around the corner is by the sudden scurry to carry out development work. In constituencies all over the country, elected representatives are in a hurry to spend their remaining discretionary funds to win over voters at the last minute. According to reports, even the prime minister has done this for his own particular constituency. The federal government has diverted funds from vital programmes to the People’s Works Programme II, which increases the discretionary funds available to the prime minister. These funds are being spent on PPP constituencies to help with the election efforts.



Among the important projects that have had their funding slashed to provide more money for PPP campaigning are the Diamer-Bhasha Dam as well as many development initiatives in Balochistan. Essentially, right now people who have the bad luck of living in areas whose representatives are not members of the PPP fighting tough election battles can forget about being on the government’s list of priorities. What is even more maddening is that this is a form of corruption and pre-poll rigging that is perfectly legal because the alternative use of the funds has been approved by the prime minister. There is nothing we can do right now to prevent this abuse of power but that does not mean that we should give up on trying to improve the process so that this practice does not become routine during future elections.

This is where the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) can intervene. Only a couple of days ago, the ECP announced that provincial and federal government departments could not use public money to purchase advertising which promotes political parties. This sensible move should be expanded in scope to ban governments from diverting previously earmarked funds for alternative purposes in an election year. Development funding should cater to the needs of the nation and not those of politicians when it is allocated. Any change in the purpose of specific funds suspiciously close to an election should require the approval of the independent ECP. Incumbents should never have an advantage in electioneering just because they control public monies.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2013.