A report appearing in this paper the other day disclosed that at a meeting, held earlier this month, the National Economic Council (NEC) decided not to include those projects in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for which the provinces could not provide the required PC-1s to the Planning Commission by April 30. The purpose, as the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Dr Akram Sheikh, later explained to this paper, is to cajole the provinces into taking the necessary action. Unfortunately, the provinces' general response to PSDP has been a lot less than enthusiastic.
The midyear review of PSDP presented at the NEC meeting showed that most of the projects are either moving at a snail's pace or not moving at all. Only 112 PSDP projects are making progress as per schedule while as many as 178 are behind schedule due to all sorts of delays related to funds release, staffing, inter-departmental problems, inefficient contractors, appointment of consultants as well as matters concerning land acquisition, and law and order.
Part of the reason why things are not moving at the desired speed comes out from the fact that out of the 256 projects only 120 have independent project directors. Which means they are headed by officials who have other duties to perform and supervise these projects only on a part-time basis. No wonder delays are common at almost every step of the PSDP implementation.
The review further reveals that while Sindh and NWFP had consumed about 50 percent, and Balochistan 62 percent, of their budgetary allocations by the time the mid-year monitoring was undertaken, Punjab had spent only 38 percent of its share.
This is rather surprising given the fact that the province has a relatively developed delivery system, and hence it should have made timely use of the funds that came its way out of the PSDP. Implementation delays, it hardly needs saying, are undesirable in term of wasted opportunities, and also because they cause cost overruns.
If the delivery system is inefficient while the money allocated for a particular project is available, past experience, like scandal involving last year's Drought Emergency Relief Assistance (DERA), showed it created room for financial irregularities as well.
The government must ensure that the provinces attach top priority to putting in place an efficient delivery system so that the funds earmarked for various public sector development schemes are spent for the purpose for which they are meant, ie, to build important infrastructure projects, and in the process to create job opportunities with a view to making a dent in the existing high incidence of poverty.
As we have been pointing out in these columns, the task requires a proper monitoring mechanism, for which the Planning Commission has both the suitable expertise and organisational capacity.
The present report shows that it has started to perform that duty admirably. Dr Akram Sheikh, under whose leadership the monitoring work has been going on, may not be an economist by profession, but he has demonstrated a serious commitment to the work assigned him. The Planning Commission's monitoring role for the PSDP is surely a commendable step towards bringing efficiency and fiscal discipline to this programme.
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