ISLAMABAD July 26: The National Assembly was informed on Monday that 10-month utilization of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of 2003-04 had amounted to just Rs60 billion or 53.2 per cent of the allocation
, even lower than 58 per cent fund utilization during the same period of 2002-03.
The house was further told that an amount of Rs92 billion was expected to have been spent during the last two months (May- June of 2004) to raise total utilization to Rs153 billion.
This has been a major problem with the Public Sector Development Programme for about half a decade now that maximum releases are made in the last two months of each fiscal year to show higher utilization rate but this compromised the quality of implementation and resulted in huge leakages.
Despite the closure of the previous financial year about a month ago in June, the government did not tell the National Assembly about the latest financial figures.
Replying on behalf of the minister for planning and development, Parliamentary Secretary for Finance Umer Ayub said the financial year had come to an end and the government would now carry out a review to ascertain the total amount of unspent funds.
However, in the written response, the minister for planning and development informed the National Assembly that a mid year review of the PSDP 2003-04 was carried out by the Planning Division to identify slow and fast moving projects.
The government's written response said Rs60 billion were spent upto April this year. "It is expected that Rs105 billion will be spent by June 2004," the government said.
Financial estimates placed before the House showed that provinces were expected to spend Rs47.514 billion by end of June with provincial breakdown of Rs23.799 billion for the Punjab, Rs7.847 billion for Sindh, Rs6.659 billion for the NWFP and Rs9.209 billion for Balochistan.
OFFICIAL WEBSITES: Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Raza Hayat Hiraj tried to defend the Electronic Government Directorate (EGD) while replying to a question by MNA Rehmatullah Khalil about updating of official websites.
When MNA Naveed Qamar questioned the posting of what he called "six-month-old information on government websites", Mr Hiraj said the information had to be furnished by the relevant ministries and EGD was only responsible for updating the provided information.
In the written response, the minister for information technology and telecommunications informed the House that EGD had communicated the requirement to all ministries for placing the latest information on their websites.
PROVINCIAL JOB QUOTA: Parliamentary Secretary for Establishment Ali Asjad Malih refuted the opposition allegations for fudging the figures while replying to a question of MNA Abdul Rauf Mengal about Balochistan's quota in federal government jobs.
Mr Malih said a total of 16,097 employees belonging to Balochistan were working in the federal government from grade 1- 22. He said out of a total of 325,829 employees, Balochistan had a share of 4.94 per cent against the allocated quota of 3.5 per cent.
When Mr Mengal challenged the parliamentary secretary for establishment that Balochistan's quota of 5.7 per cent according to the new census was not being followed, Mr Malih said he would check the details and if true, furnish the information accordingly to the House.
In reply to a question about province-wise number of officers working in BPS-17 and above in the Ministry of Information Technology, the House was informed that a total of 19 officers were on the pay-roll of the ministry including 14 from the Punjab, one from Sindh, three from the NWFP and one from NA/FATA while no official belonged to Balochistan and AJK.
MNA Mehmood Khan Achakzai questioned the absence of officers from Balochistan in the ministry and asked if there was no competent person to be appointed in the ministry.
The minister of state for parliamentary affairs defended the government's recruitment policy and said the strength of officers from provinces kept on changing as the officers were posted from one ministry to another.
UTILITY BILLS: National Assembly speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain asked the ministers concerned to facilitate the payment of utility bills by the common man when MNA Qari Gul Rehman pointed out that he was receiving wrong utility bills for the past eight months.
MNA Rasheed Akbar brought the problems faced by the common man in depositing the utility bills, prompting the minister of state for parliamentary affairs, Raza Hayat Hiraj, to outline some of the steps including online payment and pre-paid cards to be introduced to facilitate the consumers of utilities.
ABSENCE OF MINISTERS: National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain took serious note of absence of ministers during the question hour. The treasury and opposition benches voiced concern over what they said was 'non-serious' attitude of the ministers to reply to the questions during the question hour.
