September 03, 2006	Sunday	Sha'aban 9, 1427

PESHAWAR, Sept 2: The project executing agencies of the NWFP province kept showing dismal performance after they failed to utilise over Rs4.4 billion under the foreign project assistance component of the last financial year’s annual development programme (ADP), according to official sources.

The NWFP government had chalked out a plan to spend over Rs6.8bn on development schemes for which funds were to be provided by multilateral and bilateral donor agencies as soft loans during the 2005-06.The expenditure estimates were later brought down to Rs6.39bn after the provincial government found out that majority of foreign-funded projects were marred by slow execution during the nine months of the last fiscal year.

A recently carried out final analysis of the performance of the project executing agencies and departments, the government has come to know that heavy amount of soft loans could not be utilised by the end of the last financial year.

Against the Rs6.8bn initial expenditure estimates of the foreign-funded projects the provincial government recorded total expenditure of about Rs2.4bn by June 30, 2006.

The final tally of expenditure under the foreign-funded projects makes 33 per cent of the amount the government was eyeing to spend during 2005-06.

However, the government had recorded improvement in comparison with the 2004-05 when a total amount of Rs1.7bn had been spent against the Rs5.6bn available funding under the foreign component of the ADP, said a finance manager of the province.

"The expenditure recorded under the foreign-funded projects in the 2005-06 is 39pc higher than the spending recorded in 2004-05," added the finance manager.

The sources, however, said that the improvement was due to recent upward revising of the composite scheduled rates following which the cost of construction of public sector buildings/infrastructure had increased.

Slow pace of work and procedural delays were chiefly responsible for rendering the provincial government to miss the opportunity of availing soft loans, the sources added.

The finance manager said that due to lack of coordination between the Planning and Development Department and the Planning Division, Islamabad, the NWFP government had to face an `embarrassing' situation every year.

The province, said the sources, did not have the capacity to spend greater amount of funds under the foreign-funded projects which required a host of conditions to fulfil before being made available the funds.

"In such a situation the Planning Division should not project funds at a higher side as the NWFP government’s consistent failure as a result of slow execution of works has brought it a bad name," the sources said.

For the current financial year an all time-high Rs7.66bn had been projected as the foreign project assistance under the NWFP government’s annual development programme.

"In view of its past track it appears quite difficult that the provincial government would be able to fully implement its foreign funded component of the current year’s ADP," said a well-placed official.