Development funds: Raja approved Rs52b, not Rs47b in brief stint, SC told

Court seeks report on the status and transparency of these development schemes.

ISLAMABAD:

The development funds approved by former prime minister Raja Parvaiz Ashraf during his short stint in power were to the tune of Rs52 billion, and not Rs47 billion, an official of the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) told the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

AGPR representative Tahir Mahmood told the bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, that Rs22 billion had been allocated for the Peoples Work Programme-II (PWP-II) in the current fiscal budget. The amount was increased to Rs52 billion by diverting Rs30 billion from other projects.

In the last hearing, the additional secretary of the ministry of finance had informed the court that Rs47 billion were approved for the premier’s constituency.

Of Rs52 billion, around Rs42 billion had already been released to different departments, Mahmood told the court.

The bench, comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, also issued notices to the managing directors of Sui Southern Gas Company, Sui-Northern Gas Company and Pakistan Electric Power Company to submit reports on whether the projects and schemes had been executed in a transparent manner and whether they were according to the rules and regulations. The court also sought the status of these development schemes after the release of funds.

The bench also directed Finance Secretary Waqar Masood to tell the court whether Public Procurement Regulatory Authority’s (PPRA) rules were followed during the distribution of development funds among the lawmakers.

The chief justice, reading from a report submitted by the ministry of finance, also asked how the former prime minister could disburse PWP-II funds to members of provincial assemblies, as it had also been distributed among PML-Q MPAs Moonis Elahi and Raja Basharat, and that Rs100 million were released to a person belonging to Balochistan.

The court also asked the finance secretary whether the allocation of funds for development schemes after March 10 by the PPP-led government was not a violation of the Election Commission’s January 21 ban on development spending, and further directed the caretaker government not to release new development funds during its tenure as it could influence the election process.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2013.