Lucky break?: ECNEC meeting cancelled over ministerial ‘apathy’

The move saves the national exchequer from additional Rs483 billion burden owing to development schemes.

ISLAMABAD:

The national exchequer was saved from an additional Rs483 billion burden on Thursday when the federal government had to postpone a meeting intended to approve around two dozen development projects – apparently due to a lack of quorum.

The government had called a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for Thursday in order to approve schemes – including those initiated by Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar – two days ahead of finishing its five-year term.

The ECNEC, which is headed by Finance Minister Saleem Mandviwalla, has the mandate to approve projects costing over Rs1 billion.

According to sources privy to the development, ECNEC members had gathered at the Prime Minister Secretariat when Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi announced that the meeting could not be commenced due to a lack of quorum – a reason that appears odd given there is no quorum requirement for meetings of the ECNEC, Central Development Working Party (CDWP) and the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet.

Owing to solo decisions by the chairmen of important economic bodies, there has been a demand to introduce quorum and voting requirements in their decision-making process.

Talking to The Express Tribune, a finance ministry official confirmed the meeting had been postponed. He cited the cabinet ministers’ ‘lack of interest’ as a reason for the postponement. The official added that the government would reconvene the meeting over the next two days.

Nearly two-dozen projects, with a combined cost of Rs483 billion, were on the agenda of the meeting. These included a Rs243 billion foreign loan.

The top agenda, however, was once again the two road projects announced by Prime Minister Ashraf – the 64km Mandra-Chakwal road and the 70km Sohawa-Chakwal road. The government has prepared funding requests for both the projects and awarded their contracts to the National Logistics Cell. The cost mentioned in the contracts, it must be noted, is less than the cost mentioned in the original request for funds. The cost for the two projects has been revised to Rs10.5 billion. As such, a Rs3.5 billion cost overrun will have to be endorsed by the ECNEC.

The move to bring all these proposals before the ECNEC is contrary to the resolution of reducing the backlog of approved schemes, the cost of which has already crossed the Rs3.2 trillion mark. The meeting was also convened despite the reservations of the election commission over the federal government’s ongoing spending spree.

The government, on February 21, had called a meeting of the CDWP in order to obtain an initial clearance for projects announce by the premeir.

The following day, ECP dispatched a letter to the Planning Commission, seeking clarifications, sources told The Express Tribune. They claimed the planning secretary misled ECP by claiming CDWP did not violate any of the commission’s directives.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2013.