PESHAWAR, Dec 16: The NWFP government is preparing unified accounting procedures to overcome confusion and fiscal distortions currently faced by both the provincial and district governments, officials said.

“Complications and confusion caused by accounting practices being applied by the district governments need to be addressed effectively in an effort to simplify the accounting pattern, make the local governments maintain accounts in a unified pattern, ensure proper utilization of funds and speedy execution of development works in districts,” said a provincial government official.

An exercise in this regard, said an official, had recently been undertaken by authorities concerned and the same was likely to be circulated among the district governments by the end of the second quarter of the current financial year ending on Dec 31, 2003.

Official sources said that the need to introduce new and more simplified accounting procedures was being felt to help the district governments prepare their financial accounts properly, deal their financial matters effectively and maintain their income and expenditure accounts in unison.

“Though the Local Government Ordinance, 2001, contains explicit provisions to ensure devolution of financial powers to the district governments and their other tiers, the lacunas contained in it, hindering the smooth discharge of financial matters need to be removed,” said a finance manager of the province.

While the district governments’ salary account is still being supervised and maintained by the provincial government, local governments are left with minor accounting heads to deal with.

District governments, sources say, are left with little fiscal space as a result of restrictions.

Lack of know-how about the proper discharge of financial matters, said the sources, had also had a negative impact on the pace of development work in the province.

District governments failure to maintain their financial accounts properly had also negatively affected NWFP government’s over all revenue and expenditure statements creating problems for it to negotiate the World Bank loan for financing the three-year Provincial Reforms Programme.

Official sources said that district governments inability to properly maintain their accounts had jeopardized the provincial government’s civil accounts, maintained by the AG Office.

“Repeated reminders to district governments and the AG Office viz-a-viz properly maintaining expenditure accounts did not yield desired results as the province is still struggling to rectify its civil accounts to depict a clear picture of revenue and expenditure at the end of every month for the perusal of the World Bank,” said an officer.