June 29, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 2, 1427

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PESHAWAR, June 28: The NWFP government has transferred district employees’ salary account to their respective district governments, a key requirement under the devolution of power plan. Official sources said that the move was made after it was recommended by the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) in its meeting on May 10.

All district government employees would now draw their salary from account-IV (district governments) instead of account-I (provincial government).

Though Sindh and Punjab had done the same much earlier, the NWFP government had been reluctant to transfer the account to the district governments because of various reasons.

Sources said that one of the reasons was that the provincial government believed that several of the district governments lacked the capacity to maintain financial records of a large number of employees and ensure proper account keeping at their end.

Officials said that the move was being delayed despite being required by multilateral donor agencies, especially the World Bank.

“Had the World Bank been serious enough, the provincial government would have done the same long ago because it would not have been easy for the government to avoid listening to the Bank’s advice,” said a well-placed official.

The provincial government, said the sources, would release Rs25.646 billion to account-IV from where district governments draw money in accordance with their respective share envisaged under the PFC award.

During the next fiscal, district governments would get Rs21.5 billion on account of salary, Rs 2.2 billion on account of non-salary, Rs963 million for development works, whereas, an amount of Rs 1.1 billion would come under their collective share in lieu of octroi and district tax grants.

Though the salary account has been transferred to the district governments, according to officials, the provincial government would monitor handling of the same by each of the 24 district governments in an effort to avoid complications and ensure timely payment of salary to employees.

They would get funds against the total number of filled posts.

The NWFP has a total number of more than 280,000 employees, of which more than 75 per cent work for district governments.