PESHAWAR, March 24: The World Bank has offered funds to the NWFP government in addition to the Structural Adjustment Credit (SAC) for improving the social services delivery system in the province.

The offer was made by a five-member World Bank mission led by its vice-president Niko Nishimuzu at a meeting with NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani at the Frontier Hose in Islamabad, according to a handout on Sunday.

NWFP senior minister Sirajul Haq, Health Minister Inayatullah, high ranking federal and provincial officials were also present on this occasion.

The chief minister briefed the WB mission about the activities of MMA’s government in the province and recounted the steps taken so far for the establishment of the good governance.

Mr Durrani said that the province hosted about three million Afghan refugees during the last two decades. Their presence collapsed the already poor social service delivery system of the province, he added.

Mr Durrani said the available social services in the province were exposed to double pressure during this period, which exhausted every thing within a short span.

He said that in the initial days foreign donors backed the provincial administration in rehabilitation of the refugees, however, they backed out soon and left the government in the lurch to tackle the humanitarian issue.

He said poverty was the biggest problem the MMA government was facing in the province. The people have no access to clean drinking water, while health and education facilities are limited.

Mr Durrani, however, informed the mission that the present government being a real representative of the people was well aware of these problems and was working on plans to ameliorate the people’s lot.

The government was also working on the strategy to bring reforms in the education sector. For this purpose, the chief minister said, he had tasked a committee headed by the education minister to put forward proposals.

The proposals would be implemented in letter and spirit and the major problem including staff deficiencies would be removed in all the education and health centres throughout the province.

Mr Durrani told the mission the government wanted to minimize the non-development expenditures and discourage the misuse of resources. The resources thus saved, he said, could be diverted to education and health sectors. He said additional resources to both the sectors would also be diverted from the Zakat fund.

He said the government had created an endowment fund of Rs500 million for the provision of health facilities to the poor. “We want to enhance this amount to Rs1,000 million so as to provide maximum health cover to the deserving poor,” he said.