September 2, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 4, 1424

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PESHAWAR, Sept 1: A team of the NWFP government will negotiate with the World Bank authorities in Islamabad on Tuesday in a bid to persuade them to release the second tranche of loan under the Bank’s structural adjustment credit facility, officials say.

The three-member NWFP government team is being led by senior provincial minister Sirajul Haq. The second tranche of the loan amounts to $90 million for the 2003-04 financial year and it is to be used to finance the three-year-long rollover provincial reforms programme (PRP).

The first tranche of the loan had been released in July during the last financial year. The second tranche has been withheld because of the ‘provincial government’s below the mark’ performance during the first nine months of the 2002-03 financial year.

The final decision viz-a-viz continuation of the assistance to the NWFP for the 2003-04 financial year has yet to come from the Bank’s board of directors.

The meeting is being seen as part of an effort to avoid discontinuation of the World Bank’s PRP assistance on the basis of which the previous civilian provincial government had qualified for the SAC facility to introduce reforms in various sectors, particularly, in the social sectors, including health, education, roads and water supply.

Officials said the meeting was of vital importance as the World Bank’s mission is to shortly going to hold its annual review of the PRP besides preparing its report on the first year of implementation of the same.

Sources said that a World Bank team would soon hold a series of meetings with the provincial authorities concerned from Sept 6 to hold the fourth and final review of the PRP.

The review mission would analyse the provincial government’s performance viz-a-viz achievement of the benchmarks set under the SAC-I ended on June 30, 2003.

The provincial team, said sources, would try to allay the World Bank’s reservations about the NWFP government’s policies, assuring them regarding the implementation of the SAC- II.