Sources said that the Planning Commission has informed the PMIC that it was ready to give a briefing on December 28. Earlier, the PMIC had asked the Planning Commission to brief them about the projects from December 21 to 23.
Sources said that the Planning Commission’s Deputy Chairperson Dr Nadeemul Haq called PMIC Chairperson Malik Amjad Noon and agreed to brief them on five projects that the PMIC has marked “faultily planned and ill-conceived”. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had ordered an inspection of these projects.
The projects include Rainee Canal, Neelum Jhelum Hydropower project, Expanded Programme on Immunisation, construction of hydel power projects in Naltar, and the National Programme for improvement of watercourses. The PMIC’s draft reports, prepared after visits to the site, indicated that these projects were lagging behind the targets. Allegedly, the Planning Commission had received misleading progress reports by its Implementation and Monitoring Wing.
Additionally, certain elements within the Planning Commission also misled Dr Nadeemul Haq and managed to escape briefings by telling him that the PMIC had given them a four-day notice to prepare the briefings.
Sources said that the PMIC has, in principle, decided to summon the officials of the Planning Commission for failing to appear before it. Under the PMIC’s statutes, it is authorised to summon those who do not follow its orders.
The Planning Commission is currently under criticism for approving 32 projects worth Rs617 billion despite the fact that it has cut development spending by Rs140 billion due to a financial crunch.
The commission has so far approved over 1,400 schemes costing Rs3.2 trillion. But these schemes have been criticised for being uneconomical. Former Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said these projects incur a loss of Re1 over every rupee spent on them due to faulty planning, cost overruns and delays in completion.
The Planning Commission had behaved similarly in October 2009 to avoid the inspection of 10 troubled multi-billion-rupee projects. The then deputy chairperson of the commission Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali refused to cooperate with the PMIC. The prime minister’s Principal Secretary Nargis Sethi also stopped the PMIC from monitoring the projects.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2010.
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