PESHAWAR, June 16: The NWFP government’s total debt payable to the federal government and foreign donor agencies has exceeded well over Rs100 billion mark.

The provincial government’s budget documents for the next fiscal tabled before the assembly contain that NWFP’s total liabilities will stand at over Rs108 billion on July 1, 2003.

The amount includes Rs68.87 billion payable to the federal government on account of cash development loan (CDL) the successive provincial governments have been taking since early 1970s to carry out development activities.

Besides, a sum of Rs39.35 billion debt is payable to the international donor and lending agencies. The total debt of Rs108 billion includes Rs44.4 billion interest payable to the federal government and donor agencies.

The principle amount payable to the federal government and donor agencies stands at Rs29.7 billion and Rs34 billion, respectively.

The total NWFP debt is bound to increase by another Rs10 billion during the financial year 2003-04 as the annual development programme involves total foreign assistance (loans) of over Rs10 billion.

The province has recently forwarded a set of recommendations containing its debt management strategy to the Centre. Under one of the two options, it has been requested for renegotiating the mark-up rate on the total principal amount for the remaining period of the loan agreements.

In this respect, the provincial government has recommended that the rate of export refinance facility (4 per cent) may be applied as benchmark to the CDL amount or the rate of treasury bills by adding one per cent may be applied.

In another recommendation, the federal government has been asked to allow the province clear all the CDL by taking loan from the market. “If the provincial government gets loan ranging mark- up rate of 4.5 to six per cent and retire the entire CDL liabilities, the NWFP government is likely to save Rs3-4 billion per annum during the next five years,” contained the document.