Divisible Pool funds for merged districts of KP: Senate panel unhappy as MoF yet to apprise about allocation

ISLAMABAD: A Senate panel Monday expressed displeasure at the Ministry of Finance for not sending its representative to the committee to apprise it about the status of allocation of three percent from Divisible Pool of the National Finance Commission (NFC) to finance the special development of merged districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions was held at Parliament House with Senator Hidayatullah in the chair to discuss the agenda regarding issues in merged districts of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and anticipated refugee influx from Afghanistan.

The matter pertaining to compensations and commitments announced by the federal government and allocations of three percent of the divisible pool of the NFC to finance the special development of merged districts was deferred due to lack of information at the ministry’s end.

The committee expressed displeasure over the absence of the representatives of the Finance Ministry and observed that discussion on the subject would be useless without the input from the ministry.

The meeting was attended by Senator Sania Nishtar, Senator Bahramand Khan Tangi, Senator Danesh Kumar, Senator Dost Mohammad Khan, Senator Gurdeep Singh, and senior officers from the Ministry of State and Frontier Regions, Home Department Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa along with officials from the concerned departments.

Senior officials of the SAFRON Ministry told that the committee a 10-year development plan was formulated after thorough consultations for the merged districts.

Under the plan, a three-year Accelerated Implementation Programme (AIP) has been devised to fund development projects in the merged areas.

The AIP, which is a three-year programme under the tribal decade strategy has entered into its third year of implementation.

Under the programme, the officials told the committee that so far, 219 schemes have been approved falling over 24 sectors. In annual development programme (ADP), 828 schemes have been approved falling over 28 sectors. Till to date, an amount of Rs57 billion was released, which has been utilised. Similarly, under the ADP, an amount of Rs56.7 billion was released in three years, which has been utilised, the committee was further told.

However, the committee members expressed dissatisfaction over the briefing that the figures shared with them and directed that the Finance Ministry should be present in the next meeting and a breakup of expenditure verified by the Accountant General should also be submitted to the committee.

The committee expressed dissatisfaction over the merger status of Levies and Khasadar Force of the Fata into the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Police, especially in relation to non-issuance of police cards.

They also called for establishment of a separate secretariat, headed by an additional chief secretary, in order to speed up the rehabilitation and development projects in the merged districts.

Taking up the matter of the possible refugee influx from Afghanistan and the magnanimous costs involved, the committee was informed that Pakistan will not accept a refugee surge from across the border.

However, the humanitarian aspect of the situation cannot be ignored.

The officials of the SAFRON Ministry told the panel that there is a possibility of an international appeal to host displaced Afghans.

The committee, however, observed that the refugees in case of the influx should be confined to the camps to prevent any law and order situation in the country.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021