Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh on Wednesday said that Rs 350 billion additional resources have been provided to provinces under new financial arrangement which has increased their development budget up to 82 percent. Responding to concerns of various senators in the Upper House of the Parliament about problems and delay in executing development projects.
He also assured the House that government was making utmost efforts to complete development projects across the country to expedite socio-economic development despite financial constraints. He said that we are going through a historic moment and after giving additional resources to the provinces now it was their responsibility to take on seriously their job and set their priorities for development in their concerned province.
At the federal level, he said that it was the priority of the government to complete the development projects, which are in the final phase, adding that the government was trying to bring transparency in the expenditure and enhance revenue collection.
He said it has been problem for last 50 years that projects of trillions of rupees were being approved but remained incomplete due to lack of funds. About the problems being faced by the senators in getting development funds released, the finance minister proposed a special meeting with all the senators to chalk out a strategy for implementing development projects in various parts of the country and release of funds accordingly. Earlier, various senators including Zahid Khan, Haji Adeel, Kalsoom Parveen, Azam Swati and Shahid Hassan Bugti pointed out the delay in completion of various development projects across the country.