Senior K-P minister Sirajul Haq. PHOTO: INP
Senior provincial minister Sirajul Haq on Sunday blamed a severe resource crunch in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for the delay in local bodies’ elections.
By June 2014 the province’s new local bodies will be installed, Sirajul Haq told The Express Tribune. But it is not clear how this will happen, especially since the K-P government has yet to announce a date for the polls.
Elaborating the financial implications of the rebirth of local bodies’ institutions after a gap of years, Siraj said huge funds were required to meet the financial needs of the future LB system. According to him, the provincial authorities also lack funds for election expenditures.
The minister did not reveal the exact cost of setting up local bodies in K-P.
“The K-P has allocated Rs1 billion for the election expenditure out of its own financial resources. However, the federal government will contribute 50% of the total amount of the election expenditures,” Sirajul Haq said.
The minister, who also heads the provincial finance department, said his government had requested the federal government to share 90% financial burden of the LB polls. “But it agreed only to 50% contribution,” he added.
About the future annual expenditures of the local governments, Sirajul Haq said 35% of those funds would be generated through taxation to be levied by the new civic institutions in their annual budgets.
Billions of rupees are required for holding local bodies’ elections and installing district governments, according to a senior official in the provincial finance department.
“However, the money is not available in the current fiscal budget 2013-14 of the province and funds will be allocated for the local bodies’ institutions in the next 2014-15 budget,” he added.
Similar is the situation with the government of Balochistan as its chief minister, Dr Abdul Malik, told The Express Tribune last week. He had said his government had Rs6 billion in its kitty for the local bodies in the province.
“We will have to approach the federal government for the rest of the financial resources, if my government cannot manage to meet the total financial requirements,” he said.
Shortage of funds for the restoration of the local bodies’ institution is a common issue for each of the provincial governments at this stage, a highly placed official in the finance ministry said on the condition of anonymity.
“Since none of the provincial governments had any plans to hold local bodies’ elections in their respective provinces, they had not allocated funds for them in their annual budgets for 2013-14,” the official said explaining the delay.
Billions of rupees would be needed for salaries and other perks and privileges including vehicles, residences of the future mayors, chairmen, deputy chairmen and councillors of municipal, districts and union councils annually, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2013.
COMMENTS (9)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1713853507-0/MalalaHilary-(2)1713853507-0-270x192.webp)
KP has too many layers in rural govt. Should be no more than 3.
@ muslim leaguer
Education system is shattered in KPK due to ghost schools and bomb blasts....in addition human resource is also obsolete.........so it is also primary issue to be taken into consideration.....and was also one of the basic point in manifesto of KPK........In addition economics 101 also doesnt means to pool whole resources of province into one single city and deprive rest of the province like happening in Punjab
@ Vicky This is called Burger Logic. A prudent government, just like a prudent household, has to use the limited budget judiciously. Over-spending in any single area will definitely withdraw resources from other areas and therefore a balance has always to be made. Perhaps the PTI-headline makers & youthias have never read Economics101.
@kaleem
If you forgot about the budget of kpk, majority portion was allocated to education.....not to some non development expenditure........kpk has limited resources as federal govt always comes in way of getting its due share.
@Zoaib: Agree, but the delay is not to make it perfect system. The delay as minister puts it, is due to shortage of funds. Since this is one of key aspect of democracy, they should have kept funds for it rather than complaining around.
@Kaleem In case of PTI, more time could be taken, but the LB system would truly devolve power at the grassroots...this being said by experts such as Former EC Secretary Kunwar Dilshad. Other provinces not interested at all in this.
Idealistic slogans shouldn't be discouraged. If you don't aim high, you're never going to do anything great...but just a bit more preparation along with it would be nice. Still, I'd happily take the delay if the elections are conducted more transparently and truly devolve power...as in KPs case down to village level.
Worse are those who neither aim high, nor are able to achieve their "realistic" promises like in case of PML-N.
IK promissed LG election in 90 days if PTI was elected from federal cabinet. Wake up my friend.
This is bizarre. Provinces like KPK want maximum autonomy but not the associated financial responsibility ? federal government should not contribute even 1 rupee for local elections.
IK had proomised LG elections within 90 days. Yet they did not reserve enough funds for it in budget and after 200 days, they are complaining to Federal govt for funds shortage. While it makes sense, Welcome to practical politics Khan sb. Please don't raise perfectionist slogans next time.