KARACHI, Aug 30: Unapproved reallocation of resources and overspending under several heads of account by the health and other departments of the Sindh government is becoming common, indicating that its financial control system has gone haywire.

From 1992-93 to 1999-2000 more than Rs112 million was spent in excess of the budgetary allocations by health department officials alone. The home and agriculture departments also spent considerably more than what they were supposed to.

And according to well-placed sources in the provincial government, against a total allocation of only Rs200 million in the last year’s budget, between Rs600 million and Rs1.5 billion was spent by officials of the provincial departments. A sizable proportion of this amount went to the functionaries of the health and education departments.

Preliminary investigations show that the total spending under this head stands at Rs590 million, the sources told Dawn. But after further investigations, it was revealed that up to Rs1.5 billion was withdrawn under the mentioned head of account.

“Something like this never happened before,” said a senior government official. “It shows that it’s a free-for-all now. The budget, which in technical parlance is known to be a planning as well as controlling device, is no longer worth the paper on which it is written.”

He said the big racket involved not only the AG’s offices but also the treasury department officials. The chief minister’s Inspection, Enquiries and Implementation Team was busy in preparing the list of officials belonging to the two departments who might be involved in the scam directly.

The official said no amount of inspections and inquiries seemed to work. “The situation is so bad that there is hardly any hope of reform or betterment.”

Another senior official pointed out that the steps against the overspending of more than Rs112 million over an eight-year period in the 90s by the health department were taken only recently. This indicated that the governor and chief minister did not get information promptly.

“This in turn showed that either the system, supposed to ensure financial discipline, was faulty or the people running it were not sincere enough.” He said when asked to explain that why had they spent more than they should have, the health department officials had claimed that they had overshot the allocations only when money was needed urgently.

“However, in many cases the money withdrawn was spent on hospitals’ improvement and the like. This can hardly be termed ‘emergency measures’.”

This official told Dawn that of the Rs112 million that was overspent between 1992-93 and 1999-2000 by the health department, Rs23 million had been distributed through the office of the director-general health alone.

Meanwhile, there’s a feeling in the health department that many financial problems could be dealt with through the full implementation of the devolution plan. “Under the devolution plan the decisions regarding several financial issues were supposed to be taken at district level,” said one official.

But the provincial government officials, because they wanted a ‘cut’ in every conceivable financial activity, did not want to devolve their powers, he said. “Then there is the financial mafia, led by the treasury and AG offices, who also don’t want to lose their ‘cut’.

“This is primarily why the devolution plan is not being implemented properly. And this is also why the rulers should insist on the full implementation of the plan.”