Pakistan Tehreek Insaf Chairman Imran Khan wrote a letter to the then Chief Minister Parvez Khattak to stop the release of discretionary funds for himself and other Ministers and bureaucrats in year 2014, said Centre for Governance and Public Accountability (CGPA) here on Thursday.
In a press statement issued here by the CGPA stated that the decision came when a number of MPAs and cabinet members were allegedly allocated development funds and there were reports of misuse of development funds. The other reason was the speech of Chairman PTI Imran Khan at the floor of the Parliament in which he accused Federal Government on tax evasions and poor tax collection.
However, the release said the PTI led Government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa utilized Rs 837 million from the budget of the Local Governments as discretionary funds by the then Chief Minister and Finance Minister in financial year 2017-18. Out of total Rs 837 million development funds, Rs 280 million were at the discretion of Finance Minister and Rs 557 million were at the discretion of Chief Minister. The information on the allocation, releases and expenditure is still available on the website of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa finance department at http://www.financekpp.gov.pk
Center for Governance and Public Accountability (CGPA) press release reveals that highest allocation of Rs 490 million was allocated to the home district (Nowshera) of the then Chief Minster Pervez Khattak followed by Rs 200 million allocation to the home town (Lower Dir) of Finance Minister Muzafar Said. The other districts which received the discretionary funds were Swabi 55 million, Lakki Marwat 19 million, Charsadda 18.7 million, Peshawar 11.3 million, Mardan 10.1 million, Swat 8 million, Malakand 7 million, Chitral 5.5 million, Buner 5 million, Karak 2.7 million, Upper Dir 1.7 million, Bannu and Haripur 1 million each and Mansehra 0.7 million. The districts which were ignored by the Chief Minister and Finance Minister and did not received any discretionary funds includes Kohistan, Shangla, Hangu, Tank, Torghar, Battagram, DI Khan, Kohat and Abbottabad.
Program Manager CGPA Malik Masood said that discretionary funds were banned by the Supreme Court; Former KP Provincial Government always blamed other provincial governments on the allocations of discretionary funds while the same practice continuous in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Furthermore, rather leaving the local government budgets at the discretion of the local government, the provincial government used it as a tool for political maneuvering. He further said that this practice have increased un-equal distribution of resources among the districts. The funds were passed in the budget for the local governments while later twisted to discretion of Chief Minister and Finance Minister.