KARACHI, Jan 25: After an investment of more than Rs174 billion in the development of Sindh by the provincial and federal governments in the last five years, an official document of the Sindh government blames heads of provincial administrative departments, district governments and executing agencies for failing to regularly monitor the implementation of development schemes and projects at the grassroots

level.

As a consequence, many of these development schemes are not completed in time.

“This casual and indifferent attitude of the bureaucrats has left many schemes incomplete in the last five years,” disclosed a senior official who pointed out that it has pushed up cost of development schemes, rendered many other projects dysfunctional because many schemes are integrated with other projects.

Prepared by the monitoring and evaluation cell of the Sindh Planning and Development, the document, -- appraisal of development endeavour: 2002-03 to 2005-06-- does not give pointed and exact information as to how many development schemes were left incomplete because of the indifferent attitude of secretaries of various provincial departments and district coordination officers.

“Frequent transfer of secretaries and senior officers in various departments during the last five years was one of the factors that made senior officers casual and indifferent towards their job,” the officer said.

His observation is well-substantiated by a similar observation in a World Bank report on Sindh. This report found the uncomfortable coalition government in Sindh bringing a stalemate in the province which demoralised bureaucracy and discouraged private sector from playing a key role in the development of the province.

The same report observed the highest ratio of government employees and population as compared to all other provinces. With a population of 37m, the total number of provincial government employees is said to be 460,000. The same report found bad governance in Sindh to be the main issue and its offshoots are law and order and corruption.

At one time, one of the important departments of the province saw three secretaries replacing in quick succession in less than a year. Files were piled up at the chief minister’s desk. Ministers jokingly called chief minister’s desk a graveyard of files. One of the important partners in political coalition government in Sindh, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, resigned more than half a dozen times in five years.

Officials in the Sindh government say it was mandatory for secretaries of the departments and DCOs to hold periodical meetings to review performance of their departments in respect of all functions, including development.

The main purpose of holding these periodical meetings is to monitor the pace of development and resolve issues and examine and resolve administrative and financial matters hindering smooth implementation of schemes.

The monitoring and evaluation cell of the Planning Department has been issuing guidelines and measures from time to time for smooth implementation of the schemes.

Instructions were also issued after detailed and in-depth discussions at the higher level, chaired by the chief secretary of the province.

“Obviously, many of these suggestions and observations were disregarded and ignored by several secretaries,” the official said.

The secretaries and DCOs have been blamed for failing to comply with formalities for including their proposed schemes in the ADP.

“In most of the cases, they (secretaries and DCOs) fail to submit PCs-1 by the cut-off date, as a result huge allocated funds for these schemes, remain blocked for a substantial time.

“It sadly reflects the attitude of senior bureaucrats who do not attach due importance to development schemes and projects and to public money,’’ the officer remarked.

Since no regular monitoring of the development projects is being made by senior officials, the task is left to the private contractors and low level officers.

“As a consequence of this

casual attitude of senior bureaucrats, there are always many defects in development projects,’’ said a close watcher of Sindh government’s development who said this causes wastage of public funds and leakages.

Most of the planning and monitoring cells set up in administrative departments were also found to be as indifferent as secretaries.

A startling observation of the report is that not a single field report was forwarded by the planning and monitoring cells in education, health, agriculture, local government, Katchi Abadis and spatial development and works and services departments. The monitoring and evaluation cell of the planning department found “thousands of buildings’’ constructed for boys and girls non-functional because the site on which these were located were not proper, no teaching staff was appointed and no funds were provided for new schemes to make it operational. Similarly, at buildings for health centres, regional health centres, basic health units and dispensaries, doctors and para- medical staff was not available.

“While carrying out physical monitoring of these health centres in random, it was found that even maternity portions of these centres were without doors and windows,’’ the monitoring and evaluation report reveals.

What the report has failed to mention is that thousands of these vacant buildings for schools and health centres are being used as parlours of local waderas, cattle-pens and for stocking and hoarding wheat last season.

Of a total of more than Rs174 billion invested in Sindh during 2002-03 to 2006-07, the Sindh government provided from its budget Rs96 billion while the federal government sanctioned about Rs78 billion.

It also includes about Rs5 billion foreign assistance. Sindh government provides about 16 per cent of its budget for debt- servicing, most of which was acquired for development.