Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, he said the masses as well as international financial institutions (IFIs) had lost confidence in the government as province's overdraft was crossing Rs80 billion mark now.
The State Bank had converted the overdraft into loan for which the province would have to pay Rs11 billion per annum as mark-up, he said.
Opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Chaudhry Zaheeruddin, former provincial law minister Raja Basharat and Kamil Ali Agha were also present.
Mr Elahi, also a central leader of the Muslim League-Q, said the Punjab government had also taken Rs150 billion loan from commercial banks for procurement of the previous wheat crop. It would have to pay Rs15 billion as mark-up for the loan, he added.
He claimed that IFIs were losing trust in Punjab which was facing Rs12 billion shortfall in tax collection as the revenue staff had been deployed to sell subsidised flour and sugar.
Regretting that the welfare projects initiated during his era were put on the back burner, he said the construction of Wazirabad (Gujranwala) cardiology centre was stopped, patients were not getting free medicines in emergencies of state-run hospitals and Lahore-Sialkot motorway project was shelved.
He lamented that Zakat fund was not being distributed among the needy as Baitul Mal had virtually been disbanded, while the Rescue-1122 was also facing the same threat.
Recalling that he had pointed out Rs30 billion overdraft of Punjab in Ramazan and had warned the rulers of province's financial 'bankruptcy', he said the government instead of improving its performance focussed on 'character assassination' of the PML-Q.
The former chief minister said both the provincial and federal governments had compensated victims of Karachi Boulton Market tragedy but those affected in Lahore Moon Market and other Punjab towns were neither properly compensated by the provincial government nor their case was presented to the federation in a convincing way.
He alleged that the cheques given by the government to Moon Market victims were being dishonoured by banks. “On the other hand these rulers are announcing projects worth billions of rupees in other provinces just for their political gains.”
Meanwhile, a Punjab government spokesman has clarified that there is neither any financial crisis nor funds have been withheld for any project under development budget, reports APP.
He said the government had released Rs123 billion for development projects during the first five months of the current fiscal year out of which Rs51 billion had already been spent.
He said the pace of work on development projects was satisfactory and 42 per cent of the released funds had been utilised.
“The overdraft is within the limits set by the State Bank and the expenditures of the provincial government are within its resources.”
He said MPAs development projects were also in progress and no such scheme had been stopped.
He said the revised development budget for 2008-09 was Rs155 billion and the utilisation rate was 95 per cent which was a record in the history of the province.
The spokesman said no proposal to slash development budget was under consideration and hopefully more funds would be utilised under the annual development programme by the end of the fiscal as compared to the last year.
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