Violation of the ban: Govt set to approve Rs220m for vehicles, office gear

Project expected to be approved despite Ministry of Finance’s notification reinforcing the sanction

ISLAMABAD:

In violation of the ban, the federal government is set to approve Rs220 million out of the development budget for purchasing vehicles, renovating offices and accommodating retired bureaucrats.

The project is conceived by the Planning Commission (PC) for activities that fall in the category of recurring expenses but will be approved as development activities by Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Monday in his capacity as Central Development Working Party (CDWP) chairman.

The project is expected to be approved despite it being a breach of the government’s austerity policy that the Ministry of Finance reinforced through a notification issued last month.

To camouflage the real motive of setting aside Rs220 million from the development budget, the project is proposed to be approved at the name of “Institutional Strengthening and Efficiency Enhancement of Planning Commission phase-III”, according to official documents.

While trying to justify allocation of Rs220 million for the project, the PC has enlisted all those job descriptions under the proposed scheme that are currently performed by various wings of the Planning Commission and Ministry of Planning and Development, the documents showed.

The approval of the project will not only result in the wastage of taxpayers’ money but also cause confusion in the PC over functions and responsibilities of various tiers, according to officials.

The three-year project will be taken up by the CDWP on Monday. During the last tenure, the then deputy chairman of PC, Dr Nadeemul Haque, had closed the same project, terming it irrelevant and a source of accommodating retired bureaucrats of the PC.

However, Dr Haque had to bite the bullet when project director Asif Sheikh got the project extended by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.

Out of Rs220 million of the total cost of the project, as much as Rs113.5 million or 51.5% has been proposed to spend on renovation, repair of premises occupied by PC, procurement of furniture, fixture, telephone charges, janitorial services, purchase of vehicles and charges on oil petroleum products, according to the PC documents.

An amount of Rs31.8 million or 14.4% of the cost has been proposed for renovation of office buildings. Another sum of Rs29.5 million or 13.4% of the cost has been recommended for procurement of furniture. A sum of Rs14.7 million has been proposed for telephone and stationary.

Additionally, an amount of Rs10.9 million has been proposed for purchasing two vehicles for project director and one van for staff and to bear their POL and maintenance.

“There will be a complete ban on purchase of all types of vehicles both for current as well as for development expenditures”, stated the Ministry of Finance’s September 9 notification.



An amount of Rs7.5 million has been suggested for POL charges, repair and maintenance of these new vehicles. These vehicles will be bought despite the fact that Sheikh already owns a vehicle, bought under the previous phase of the project.

Duplication of activities

According to project documents, it is necessary for “financial reforms, capacity building, e-governance, effective preparation and implementation of plans, projects funded through the PSDP and monitoring and evaluation of the development activities enshrined in the Vision 2025”.

Further, the project is claimed to assist in providing a conducive macroeconomic and regulatory framework, promoting reforms and developing initiatives for regional integration. It will also assist in deciding approval of projects; improve monitoring and preparing summaries for National Economic Council, Executive Committee of National Economic Council and Annual Plans Coordination Committee.

However to implement Vision 2025, the government is already in the process of setting up a special project delivery unit. To perform monitoring task, there is already Member Monitoring and Implementation in Management Pay scale-I in addition to a special project for monitoring and evaluation.

When contacted, the spokesman of the PC did not comment. But a senior official of the PC admitted that there was a need to revisit the project cost and components.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2014.

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