PM’s discretionary fund: Body overseeing diversion of funds kept in the dark

81.8% of Rs1.5b balance in PM’s Flood Fund was diverted to constituencies of PPP parliamentarians.

ISLAMABAD:

Fresh details of the prime minister’s decision of approving Rs1.2 billion out of PM’s Flood Relief Fund of 2011 reveal that the entire exercise was cosmetic and tailor-made.

As of June last year, the available balance in PM’s Flood Fund was Rs1.5 billion and 81.8% of it was diverted to the constituencies of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) parliamentarians.

In a bid to dole out flood donations for political gains in constituencies of senior leaders of the PPP, the government bypassed laid down procedures and approved Rs1.2 billion in the names of parliamentarians instead of giving money to specific schemes on Monday.

Even the steering committee that recommended Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to approve the projects was actually used as a stamping body since these proposals originated from the PM’s Secretariat to begin with.

The move has raised questions over the credibility of the entire exercise.



According to the minutes of the first meeting of the steering committee on overseeing the projects, the PM’s Secretariat had recommended the projects to the steering committee for consideration. The committee approved the projects in the names of certain parliamentarians without having exact details of the schemes.

However, the minutes state, “The (steering) committee recommended the projects for approval in principle with the stipulation that the details of the schemes be furnished immediately”.

However, the question remains as to how the steering committee knew that Minister for Religious Affairs Khursheed Shah needed Rs250 million for flood related projects to be carried out in his constituency.

According to the minutes, the committee also sought a certificate from the PM’s Secretariat that these projects are related to the flood-hit areas of 2011 — again highlighting that the steering committee was in the dark.

When contacted, Cabinet Division Spokesman Omar Hameed Khan insisted that an official of the Planning Commission was a member of the steering committee, thus the exercise was valid.

Despite the claims of the spokesman, it appears that the steering committee did not have a feasibility study/report or the PC-Is of the projects in front of it.

Sources in the Planning Commission told The Express Tribune that the body’s member on the steering committee Asif Sheikh had endorsed the projects and was now manoeuvring them to seek the commission’s stamp of approval on the projects.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2013.