Falling behind

Sindh have often complained about monopolisation of resources by Punjab, yet it failed to utilise funds it was given.

In a country that is hard-pressed for development funds and in dire need of social projects, there can be no greater crime than non-utilisation of budgeted finances. And that is exactly what the Sindh government has been guilty of this financial year. According to a progress report, the provincial government has only utilised about 70 per cent of its development budget in 2013-14.



What is even more disturbing is that the report, details of which were printed in this newspaper, shows that there was no money spent on more than 100 crucial schemes of the health and education departments alone. In education, 49 out of 180 major schemes (27 per cent) went unexecuted, 60 out of 158 (38 per cent) for the health sector, a massive 230 out of 726 (31 per cent) for road networks and 75 out of 327 (23 per cent) for various local government projects.

These are startling numbers by any standard. Education is already a very low priority, as are health services, in a country that spends a large chunk of money on defence and debt servicing. The report minced no words in its painting of an abysmal picture in the province: “The government has allocated Rs5,010 million for the up-gradation of primary schools to middle schools in Sindh … the finance department has released Rs50 million for the scheme but the utilisation is zero in the 10 months of this fiscal year.”

This in a country that, according to its own leaders, is in a state of emergency in terms of education, with nearly 25 million children out of school and a literacy rate of below 60 per cent (that figure, too, is inflated, given that the criterion for declaring someone literate is debatable); this in a country that is struggling to control polio and measles and countless other diseases.

But the moral outrage over the ignoring of such critical areas aside, the issue of non-utilisation of funds is, above all, about governance and priorities — or a lack thereof. The second largest province in the country has for years been a bastion of strength for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The party was, according to many analyses, voted out of power nationally in 2013 because of, among other things, inefficient governance.

The problem was most potent in Sindh. One would think that the party would have learned from this experience — but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The PPP has persisted with the same chief minister and effectively the administration that had been singled out by many — both inside and outside the party, in political circles as well as civil society — as for the lack of service delivery and governance. Qaim Ali Shah, a veteran politician no doubt, has been criticised as holding too many portfolios himself and, given his advanced age, being unable to meet the gruelling demands of chief ministership. Yet this criticism seems to be falling on deaf years.

The job of running the provincial administration became even more demanding post the Eighteenth Amendment in 2010, after which many key departments were devolved from the centre to the provinces. Sure this means that the provinces now have more money to utilise and need a more efficient implementation system — but four years have passed since that administrative change.

And while the other provinces seem to have adjusted to the new challenges, Pakistan’s second largest province, home to the country’s largest city, seems to have fallen behind. The province’s leaders have often in the past been found complaining about it not being given its due share, and often pointing to the monopolisation of resources by Punjab in the division of funds to provinces. Yet it seems to be doing no good to its case by not even utilising the funds it is given.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2014.

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