The funds to 18 Senators could not be released due to different reasons including incomplete development schemes or late submission of the schemes, official documents available with APP revealed.

It was said that since the completion of development schemes is the responsibility of executing agencies, therefore the executing agencies have been regularly pushed to expedite the progress of the development schemes.

However, it said that the executing agencies could not execute any development scheme if it is submitted late.

It was informed that as many as Rs2bn development funds of parliamentarians lapsed only due to delayed submission of developments schemes.

An official of the Parliament House said that out of Rs2 billion an amount of Rs1.2 billion issued for the development schemes of the Senators were lapsed due to belated submission of development schemes.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011