ISLAMABAD: The government has decided in principle to close down the Competitive Support Fund (CSF) by end March after more than five years of operations following failure of the fund to help Pakistan’s economy stood on a competitive footing.

A senior official in the finance ministry told Dawn on Wednesday that the funding for the ongoing projects would be made available till March 31, 2012.

The CSF was the joint initiative of the Pakistan Ministry of Finance and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) established with a plea to reposition Pakistan faltering economy on a sound grounds.

Foreign Minister Ms Hina Khar had already resigned as the chairperson of the CSF Board a month ago. Currently, there are 30 staff members at CSF besides consultants appointed for various projects. It has been observed that the funding were mostly used to give consultancy to those people who either were in direct contact with chief executive of the CSF or having connections in the finance ministry.

Every year an amount of $200-$300 million had been released by the USAID for the CSF projects. A similar amount was allocated by the ministry of finance from its own account to match the grants. For most of the time since its inception, the German origin chief executive Arthur Bayhan headed the organisation. He was all and all in granting consultancy and designing of the programmes, a source in the CSF said Since the departure of Mr Bayhan in the year 2011, there was no regular chief executive officer of the CSF. But to run affairs on temporary basis, the government has appointed a retired government officer Shahab Khawaja as acting CEO of the CSF.

The finance ministry was not happy with the new CEO, which finally led to the closure of the fund, the source claimed. But the closure decision was taken during a high-level meeting held in the finance ministry headed by Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Shaikh.The CSF was based on international best practices to strengthen and make the private sector more competitive and to improve the policy framework needed for innovation-based competitiveness.

The CSF was supporting Pakistan’s goal of a more competitive economy by providing input into policy decisions, working to improve regulatory and administrative frameworks and enhancing public-private partnerships within the country.