pervez.tahir@tribune.com.pk
It was interesting to hear a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami drawing a parallel between the neglect of erstwhile East Pakistan and K-P. He had better look into his own backyard first. In the first six months of the current year, the K-P government’s total revenue was Rs132.5 billion. Out of this, Rs106.8 billion was the provincial share in federal revenue and Rs13.5 billion in federal loans and grants. Total expenditure at Rs99.7 billion was far less than the revenue –– incurred mostly on the current side. Development expenditure was a mere Rs14.5 billion out of a total allocation of Rs83.3 billion and release of Rs37.7 billion. The expenditure comes to Rs2.4 billion a month. In comparison to the period last year, Rs17.2 billion were spent only on the so-called pro-poor development expenditure alone.
It shows that his government is slower than its predecessor in utilising available resources for its own people. He might say that present government is taking its time because it want to check corruption. There will be zero corruption if you don’t spend at all! As it is, there will be a rush to spend towards the end of the fiscal year to avoid lapsing of budget allocations, creating far more opportunities for corruption than properly-phased expenditure over the year. The issue is that the K-P government has been too slow in putting in place the promised systems of accountability and transparency. As many as 378 projects included in the Annual Development Programme were unapproved. These are projects the provincial government wanted to initiate to make its presence felt, but without the necessary intellectual and professional preparedness.
Not all news from K-P is bad. The Sehat ka Insaf programme is innovative and other provinces are contemplating its replication. The Right to Information Act is probably the best in the country. One understands that political interference in the police department is now limited. An MPA can ask for the transfer of a police officer of his disliking, but cannot replace him by an officer of his liking. An excellent draft bill on higher education is ready, but traditional vested interests are delaying its passage. Legislation on local government comes closest to the concept of taking governance to the grass roots. Whether elections can be held in April is another matter. Transparent elections are a major plank of the PTI programme. For reasons not hard to understand, the federal government is dilly-dallying to provide the required funding to the Election Commission of Pakistan for the biometric system. If the K-P government is serious in demonstrating that fair polling is not impossible, it should make available its own funding.
There is much that the K-P government can claim credit for, but the economy is not one of them. The economy is neither a fertiliser factory nor a sugar mill. The PTI’s overrated entrepreneurs failed their own calling in refusing to accept the challenge of managing the Peshawar Electric Supply Company.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 28th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (7)
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@Sohaib: EVM's may require time to be tested and implemented... but over a decade?! Especially after NADRA and all and Pakistan having a fairly solid computerised database? I dont see why the next elections cannot use EVMs if somebody sets about getting them implemented now. The question needs to be asked as to why the government isnt getting started on it. Why is the first testing being done in Peshawar at the insistence of the PTI and not in Pindi at the insistence of the PMLN? After all, they are the majority party, they should be most concerned about keeping elections as devoid of controversy as possible.
In fact, the longer its going to take, the earlier they should be starting!
Lets call a spade a spade... we all know its not really these "technical considerations" that are the bottleneck!
you forgot to mention KPK Accountability Commission which is the only accountability commission which is independent & KPK is the only province which now have its own Accountability Commission
Interesting article. If PTI's appeasement policy continues, there will be nothing left of the economy,
Sir, you say. "For reasons not hard to understand, the federal government is dilly-dallying to provide the required funding to the Election Commission of Pakistan for the biometric system. If the K-P government is serious in demonstrating that fair polling is not impossible, it should make available its own funding."
But the issue is not financing of an expensive election exercise alone. The ECP has maintained rightly so that a biometric system will need to be tested in trial phases before wide implementation. They did a small batch of tests in Peshawar late last year but roll-out should be in phases, before a province wide exercise. Just across the border, the EVMs were rolled out from local to national level over more than a decade. EVM use will require bot just new training for polling agents and supervisors, but for judicial staff involved in approval and counting procedures. There can be a thousand issues in the first phase of EVM rollout. It is wise to test it in a single tehsil or district before wide use.
The PTI government knows that ECP will not agree to testing an entirely system in the whole province. Hence, they'll keep on making noise about 'biometric' 'fingerprints' and '35 punctures' because it earns them political brownie points and voter sympathy, even when they know it cannot happen.
Even more noteworthy is the fact that KP will de deprived of an additional 50 billion in federal transfers from next year as the hydel profit arrears that were distributed over the last few years are set to expire, and so is the additional security expenditure role agreed upon in the NFC.
Knowing this, KP is now demanding a total of 50 billion and more in security related expenditure NFC adjustment. It doesn't seem likely that other provinces will agree on such a high figure, and the cordial atmosphere that surrounded the last NFC, with the 18th amendment being worked upon then, not present anymore, KP should be ready for tight fiscal times. I'm sure they can rely on their social media teams and sympathetic journalists to make a lot of noise.
At least they set up a revenue authority. Hopefully, it will be successful like in Sindh and Punjab.
I don't get why it is so hard to understand that PTI asked for generation & distribution of electric supply as distribution alone wouldn't have solved anything and would have been completely useless. (The reason why PML-N was so eager to handover PEPCO alone) Federal government has no control over State Bank...hard to believe.