Matter of pride: K-P refuses to touch PM’s funds for MNAs

Cabinet Division reminds province to use the money before fiscal year ends

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) legislators in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have not spent a single penny from the discretionary funds allocated to them by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

A steering committee of the Cabinet Division has reminded the provincial government to immediately utilise the discretionary fund worth Rs800 million before it will lapse at the end of the financial year which ends on June 30, official sources told The Express Tribune.

Officials said the Cabinet Division has told the K-P government that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted proper utilisation of funds allocated to each MNA for their respective constituencies in the province.

They said the MNAs were allocated Rs20 million each to spend as per their discretion on development schemes in their respective constituencies. However, the PTI MNAs refused to utilise the funds and none responded to the federal government.

Although, the Supreme Court in its December 2013 ruling had put a ban on the discretionary funds, the prime minister’s team found a solution to appease the MNAs. Sources said the team gave the premier the idea to utilise Rs12.5 billion kept in the Public Sector Development Programme for community development projects meant to achieve targets under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).



Sources said Captain (retd) Mohammad Safder, the premier’s son-in-law, who was responsible for the distribution of these funds to MNAs, presided over the steering committee a few days back.

State Minister Sheikh Aftab, Public Affairs Unit head Chaudhry Saud Majeed, federal secretary cabinet, four chief secretaries and other senior officials in Islamabad attended the meeting.

During the meeting all MNAs regardless of their party affiliations were asked to submit details of the development schemes in their constituencies through district coordination officers. All relevant ministries have been directed to immediately complete the process of approval of schemes and utilise the allocated funds for each MNA within three months before the end of the current fiscal year.

K-P refused

Sources said that the steering committee was told that the K-P government was reluctant to use the funds that were transferred by the federal government through the Planning and Development (P&D) Division.

Sources claimed that Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak has directed provincial chairman of P&D Division not to utilise the funds. The PTI-led provincial government was against funding of schemes tabled by the local PML-N leaders they had defeated in the general election, sources said.

They said the PML-N through approving their development schemes in K-P wanted to kick off a campaign for the upcoming local government election. Sources said the steering committee wrote a fresh letter to the K-P chief secretary, P&D chairman and the chief minister urging them to utilise the Rs800 million funds which would otherwise lapse on June 2015.

The other three provinces Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan have started utilisation of funds for development schemes under the premier’s discretionary funds. In Punjab, sources said, if any MNA utilises Rs20 million for development before June 2015, the government would allocate another Rs30 million for that constituency.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2015.