Public assets: FD prepares draft Public Asset Management Guidelines

ISLAMABAD: Finance Division has prepared draft Public Asset Management Guidelines (PMGs) 2024 to establish a unified and consistent set of procedures in managing public assets during the course of service delivery.

The draft guidelines uploaded on the Finance Ministry's website along with a Expenditure Wing of Finance Division's letter subject, “International Monetary Fund (IMF's) Technical Report on Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) and Climate-PIMA”, stated that Draft Public Assets Management Guidelines 2024 as per PIMA prepared in consultation with the Committee constituted.

The Finance Ministry stated that the draft guidelines can be downloaded from Finance Division's website.

It is requested that views comments on the Draft Guidelines may kindly be furnished to Finance Division within 15 days.

The IMF on its website noted that Pakistan is working to improve its public investment management (PIM) to support economic growth and service delivery and make public infrastructure more sustainable and resilient to climate change.

This assessment applies the IMF’s Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) framework, including the Climate-PIMA module. It highlights some of the important efforts made in recent years to strengthen PIM and identifies scope for further strengthening of key institutions. In a context where fiscal space is tight and climate action urgent, it recommends a number of targeted actions to move reforms forward.

The Finance Ministry stated that the PAMGs have been developed as a multi-context application guidance for Ministries, Divisions, Attached Departments and Subordinate Office (MDAS), which have a responsibility for managing public assets under their administrative mandates.

PAMGs seek to provide a consistent, framework for federal government agencies to use when implementing a system of asset management planning. These guidelines will serve as an ECNEC-approved mechanism for the operation, management, maintenance, sustenance, and improvement of public assets.

The ministry of finance encourages MDAS to use these guidelines to continuously improve their asset management policies and plans and take a ‘whole- life’ approach to the ownership of assets under their care, control and areas of responsibility. PAMGs aim at transforming management of public assets to an optimal standard while addressing various challenges that continue to prevail.

The primary task is to document all public assets, create a central asset register, and adopt asset management practices that maintain and extend value of the assets for continuous operations at best possible levels.

The central asset register will collate data on public assets, organize it, and render information retrievable for appropriate and timely decisions for asset management.

It would require practices across government agencies that are definitionally compatible. Hence, establishing a unified and consistent set of procedures, in the form of PAMGs, is essential and the first step in moving toward effective and efficient asset management.

The guidelines prescribed procedures for acquisition, maintenance, accounting, disposal and other activities involved in managing public assets. Government shall be able to monitor and evaluate its assets portfolios and decide accordingly. Guidelines will also be an instrument to assess asset management protocols and practices in government agencies and devise plans for reaching the prescribed standards.

The primary objective of these Public Assets Management Guidelines is to establish a unified and consistent set of procedures in managing public assets during the course of service delivery, to establish accountability and transparency in the management of public assets, to set controls through clear and comprehensible instructions and to harmonize public asset management practices with international standards.

The public assets for their inherent value as well as for their useful deployment in public services are to be documented and registered, monitored all along their life from acquisition to disposal to ensure value retention and value deployment at every stage and thus maximize the value of the assets for public sector operations and the national economy.

The guidelines envisage operationalisation of a central asset register in accordance with Financial Accounting & Budgeting System (FABS) Assets Management Module at the Controller General Accounts (CGA), effective assets maintenance plans, adequate allocation of public funds for maintenance and optimal utilization.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024