25 April 2004	Sunday	04 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR, April 24: NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani is likely to get scrapped the Rs96 million discretionary fund he is entitled to under the provincial finance commission (PFC) award for carrying out development works on his directives in districts , according to official sources.

The sources said that there were strong indications that the CM's discretionary fund would get abolished under the next PFC award which is to take effect from the start of the new financial year.

The NWFP government is supposed to distribute a total of Rs963.393 million, during the 2003-04 financial year, among the 24 district governments in accordance with their respective share determined on the basis of resource distribution formula under the current PFC award.

The amount is meant to enable the district governments to plan, design and execute development works on their own keeping in view the development needs of their respective area.

Of the total amount, a sum of Rs96.339 million (ten per cent of the total development funds) has been set aside to carry out development works on the special directives of the chief minister.

The discretionary fund had actually been created, under the 2002-03 financial year's PFC award, by the last military backed civil government in the province and was utilised, at that time, by NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah in his capacity as the chief executive of the province.

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal-led NWFP government continued with the arrangement and under the current financial year's PFC award the provision of CM's special fund was kept in place.

However, the sources said, the discretionary fund was most likely to be abolished under the new PFC award after being opposed by the district governments' representatives in the PFC.

The PFC - involving representatives of the provincial and district governments and tehsil municipal administration - in one of its meetings agreed that the CM's discretionary fund should be done away with and the new PFC award should not involve any special fund to be used on the chief minister's directives.

The local governments' representatives, said the sources, opposed the idea of special fund on the pretext that the district governments were not being provided ample resources for development activities while their needs were much greater than the size of funds each one of them was getting. Therefore, the amount put aside for the chief minister's directives should also be distributed among them directly.

They were also skeptical about the way the chief minister utilized the discretionary fund and finally the PFC - headed by the provincial minister for finance, planning and development Siraj-ul-Haq - decided that the new award would not involve the provision of chief minister's discretionary fund.

The provincial finance minister Siraj-ul-Haq belongs to the Jamaat-i-Islami while chief minister Akram Khan Durrani represents the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) in the coalition government.

"Abolition of the discretionary fund would form a recommendation of the PFC which has held a series of meetings to prepare the new award, due to become effective from July 1, 2004," said an official source.

In such a situation, chief minister Akram Khan Durrani would not be left with any extra amount to get executed development works on his directives, maintained a senior development planner of the province.

The sources said that the abolition of the chief minister's discretionary fund would enable the district governments to get increased amount of funds for development activities during the next financial year.

The move would help them get their individual share - under the total development funds distributed among them - raised from the level of the current financial year.