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SINDH Finance Minister Sayed Murad Ali Shah told the Provincial Assembly in his budget speech that the annual development programme for the coming financial year will be Rs225bn, an increase of a massive 39pc over the current year’s ADP, and termed this increase a ‘great achievement’.
However, those keeping an eye on the financial ‘release’ and ‘utilisation’ patterns believe that Sindh has miserably failed in utilising its previous budgeted funds including the development budget of 2015-16.
This under-utilisation is unfortunately serious in the ADPs of those departments which are directly related to the human and infrastructure development, as well as improvement of livelihood, and in the sphere of income generation etc.
For example, Community Development Programme for Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) was able to utilise only 28.39pc of the total allocation, Education Department 37.22pc, Health Department 25.40pc, Population Welfare Department 4.16pc, Social Welfare Department 10.36pc, Universities and Boards 23.46pc and Women Development Department only 42.31pc.
The department of Katchi Abadis could not use a single penny of its allocation of Rs87m despite the release of Rs72.06m to the department. Similarly, the Special Education Department was also not released any amount from its allocated Rs200m.
There is a need for reform in the process of not only budget making, but in order to make releases and utilisation quicker and more participatory.
Closer coordination is required among the government departments, elected representatives, civil society organisations and other key stakeholders in budget making to make it inclusive and widen its benefits.
Both the provincial and federal governments should monitor the budget allocation and implementation of projects in the districts.
The slow pace of utilisation of funds is rooted in low service delivery capacity.The provincial finance minister himself disclosed in his budget speech that the revised estimates for total provincial receipts for the financial year 2015-16 were Rs696.7bn, as against the budget estimate of Rs726.6bn, showing a decrease of 4.1pc. However, the receipts from the federal government on account of revenue assignment, straight transfers and grants stood at Rs494.3bn, which is almost the same as the budget estimate of Rs494.1bn. This shows that there has been no cut in the release of the federal transfers to the province.
However, only Rs107.541bn was utilised against the allocated budget of Rs213.649bn of its Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) including district ADP and federal grants 2015-16, or merely 50pc of the allocated budget. A large number of the development projects which were supposed to be completed during the last financial year have now been shown as ongoing projects in the provincial budget of 2016-17.
The picture becomes even bleaker if the utilisation figures of only PSDP 2015-16 (excluding District ADP and Federal Grants) are analysed. According to the review of the final budget release and utilisation report of the Sindh government, only Rs72,591.536m (43pc) out of the total allocation of Rs168,985bn of the PSDP were utilised, leaving 57pc of the PSDP unutilised. There is also a drastic difference in the releases and utilisations, as out of the total allocations of Rs168.985bn, Rs114.574bn were released. The utilisation of only Rs72.591bn brings the usage to only 63.4pc of the releases. This clearly indicates that the capacity of the utilisation remained too low. ?
The writer is a researcher and civil society professional.
Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, July 11th, 2016
