PSDP allocations: Almost Rs1.5 billion might go unfunded due to ICT ‘boo-boo’

The city admin apparently forgot to include the projects in their budget documents.

ISLAMABAD:

Some 35 ongoing projects for rural areas of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) which had been approved by the Finance Division were “mistakenly” excluded from the Public Sector Development Programme for the new fiscal year.

The projects, worth Rs1.49 billion, had been sanctioned under the Islamabad Development Package (IDP).

According to documents available with The Express Tribune, the approved projects included improving access to healthcare and education  and rehabilitation of roads. They have been financed through the IDP since 2005.

In the eight years since 2005, the finance ministry had been approving IDP projects for ICT and including them in the PSDP. However, no projects were included in the current year due to negligence by the ICT.



The majority of incomplete projects including heath, education and reconstruction of roads are estimated at Rs1.49 billion. ICT sources accused senior officials of negligence, saying they were supposed to ensure these projects were included in the PSDP. The sources said the entire list of projects was omitted instead of getting more allocations for ongoing and future projects,.



Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Amir Ali Ahmed confirmed that the ICT had made a mistake which led to the projects being excluded from the current budget. “I’m surprised how we could have missed the IDP projects. I think it was a human error,” he claimed.



When asked about the future of these projects, Ahmed claimed that the administration had sent a request to the interior ministry to include these projects in PSDP by giving them top priority, adding that he was hopeful that the new interior minister would seriously consider it. “A letter has been forwarded to the interior minister requesting that he treat this as a special case,” he claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2013.