The government has started construction work on 15 hospitals out of 40 approved by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 2016 in four federating units, while work on other hospitals will be started soon. Briefing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament which met here on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Khursheed Ahmed Shah, Federal Secretary Planning and Development, Shoaib Siddiqui said that at present various developmental schemes worth Rs 4,800 billion are undergoing.
He said that the federal government's annual developmental budget is Rs 1,000 billion, adding owing to huge spending on ongoing development projects, the government should not design further developmental projects for next five years.
He said that the construction of the 40 state-of-the-art hospitals within next few years will immensely assist to resolve health related issues being faced by the poor segment of the country.
The committee also discussed the issue of delay in the construction of cancer hospital in Rawalpindi as well as women hospital. Responding to the queries of the PAC, deputy commissioner Rawalpindi said the cancer hospital project in Rawalpindi was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) with an estimated cost of Rs 1.3 billion. The deputy commissioner said that after passage of 18th Constitutional Amendment this project has been transferred to the provincial government of Punjab, adding the provincial government will complete it but its projected cost has reached Rs 3.5 billion now.
The committee observed that incompetent bureaucracy has played havoc with the country and because of bureaucrats' incompetence multibillion rupees funds remain unutilized every year. The panel asked the secretary planning to ensure utilisation of approved funds and don't approve projects where long delays are expected.
The committee said that high-ups of the Ministry of Finance were actually responsible for delay in various projects as they are not releasing required funds in time. Briefing the committee, the senior officials of the Ministry of Planning said that as per rules and regulations utilisation of 23 percent of allocated funds is a must on a certain project during a year to be included in the list of ongoing project, if any ministry or departments fails to spend less than 23 percent, such projects are closed. Secretary Finance Junaid Anwar briefing the participants said that the Finance Ministry doesn't delay release of funds for those ministries and divisions which submit their requirements with the Finance Ministry for various projects.
He said that as per law, ministries and departments are required to spend released funds within a certain timeframe, adding if any ministry or division fails to do so, approved funds for such projects at the end of the financial year automatically stand lapse and the departments are bound to redeposit such funds to the Finance Ministry.
However, the committee members were not satisfied with the secretary planning with regard to increasing costs of delayed projects. The chairman PAC said that the panel was there to ensure transparent use of public money, adding that it was observed that allocated funds for various projects lapsed due to lethargic attitude of the senior officials and the committee will not tolerate such acts.
The secretary Planning asked the panel to give directions to the government for ensuring completion of the approved projects within a timeline. He said if a project is delayed for 2 years, 16.5 percent escalation cost is allowed as per law while after four years 20 percent escalation cost is allowed. Committee member Mian Abdul Manan said that politicians are answerable for 40 years; therefore, bureaucrats must be ready to face accountability. The panel asked the Ministry of Planning to present all the record of past five years before the committee, saying that delay in project has caused most serious financial losses to national kitty. The committee said that various projects only exist on papers while nothing has been done on ground despite spending billions of rupees from national kitty. Member Committee Senator Chaudhary Tanvir Ahmad said that Rawalpindi cancer hospital was announced by Pervez Musharraf without any feasibility report or PC-1, therefore this project could not be completed.
Comments
Comments are closed.