PESHAWAR: ADP approval orders ignored by districts
By Intikhab Amir
PESHAWAR, Jan 18: The district governments have taken no notice of the NWFP government's instruction to get their annual development programmes approved for the current financial year, sources told Dawn.
"What else can we do except issuing instructions and reminding them about their legal obligations in respect of getting their ADPs approved from their district councils," said a senior provincial government officer.
Out of 24 district governments of the Frontier province, only six have got their ADPs approved from their district councils by the end of the first three months of the current financial year.
"Still, there are about 10 districts which have not got their ADPs approved, though half of the fiscal year has passed," said a development planner of the province. Sources in the finance and planning and development departments were unanimous in their view that the inability of the district governments had put the provincial government in an awkward position before the federal government and foreign donor agencies.
The sources said that districts' failure to follow rules had resulted in embarrassment for the provincial government as during meetings with donor agencies they always pressed the government for speedy implementation of development works.
The districts' failure also added to the tense working relationship between the federal and the provincial governments. "Whenever the provincial government acts against the district governments for their failure to comply with our instructions, nazims make the federal government to intervene.
This adds to the fluid relationship that the Centre and the province have," said a senior official. An officer of the planning and development department told Dawn that the progress on development projects being executed by the district governments would be reviewed after Eidul Azha.
A high-level meeting, he added, would review the district governments' performance in terms of executing their ADPs during the first six months of the current financial year.
Out of Rs72 million released by the provincial government to districts in the first quarter of the current financial year, the district governments used Rs4.2 million, leaving the remaining amount unspent.
The situation, he added, did not appear to be much different at the close of the second quarter in view of the fact that the provincial government's instructions to districts regarding their ADPs remained to be complied with by at least eight district governments.
In some of the cases, according to the sources, the district governments are spending development funds without getting their ADPs approved from the district council. "All such expenditure is illegal for being without lawful authority," said a finance manager of the province.
