April 19, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 18: The Khushhali Bank has said that the dreary picture painted in the Auditor General’s report of its performance regarding the ‘Jafakash Aurat’ project in 2007 has changed for the better in 2008.

Communicating new developments, the bank updated the figures that were based on data from the year 2007 AG report placed before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee.

The AG report had detected slow implementation, underutilisation of funds and ineffective coordination between stakeholders, besides inadequate surveys for the project.

A statement issued by the bank on Friday said that the as of April 2008, it had provided 457 loans till March 2008 with a target of 1,000 loans to be met until June 2009. The bank had already disbursed Rs4,022,200 against these loans.

The bank also pointed out that of the total funds of Rs39.785 million allocated for the Jafakash Aurat project, Rs26.785 million were to be disbursed by the ministry of women development, while Khushhali Bank’s share in the project amounted to Rs13 million, which was to be in the form of micro-credit extended to women.

The bank claimed to have duly met the target and successfully provided micro-credit to 457 women against a target of 1, 000 from the pool of women being trained by it.

It also said that an amount of Rs26.785 million was allocated as the ministry of women development’s share for the project, but Rs24.785 million had been disbursed to the bank to date.

These funds had been extended to meet the project’s costs associated with setting up of training centres, capital needs and human resource requirements for the trainers, mobilisers, and project managers, etc.

Contrary to the report, total funds utilised by the Khushhali Bank till March 2008 amounted to Rs14,912,067, constituting 60 per cent of the total allocation.