PESHAWAR, Aug 21: Though well over one-and-a-half months of the new financial year have passed, some of the district governments in the NWFP have yet to get their annual budgetary plans for fiscal 2003-04 passed by their respective district councils.

“Not all the 24 district governments of the NWFP have got their income and expenditure estimates for the new financial year passed by their councils,” said a senior officer of the provincial government.

Failure on the part of the district governments concerned is a violation of the Local Government Ordinance, 2001, which has explicitly made it binding on all district governments to get their annual budget passed well ahead of the new fiscal year or within 14 days of the commencement of that year.

Official sources said provincial government’s bid to get budgetary plans of all the district governments for the fiscal 2003-04 had yet to succeed as some of these (district governments) had not yet provided copies of their respective annual budgetary plans to the province.

“The repeatedly sent official memorandums also remained unattended as few of the district governments are still supposed to provide their budget documents to the provincial government,” said a finance manager of the province.

According to him, between 10 and 15 per cent of the total number of district governments of the NWFP have yet to get their annual budgets for 2003-04 passed from their respective district councils.

Sources said the district governments could not provide copies of their annual budgets to the provincial government despite its repeated instructions because of the fact that they had yet to get their income and expenditure estimates for the fiscal 2003-04 passed from their respective district councils.

“Yes, this is an anomaly, as under the law each district government is required to get its budget passed for a new financial year from its council concerned before the commencement of the said fiscal year,” said the officer.

In line with section 112 of the local government ordinance 2001, district Nazims are required to table the budget for approval by the respective council before the beginning of the new financial year.

The aforesaid provision has, apparently, been flouted by majority of the district governments as, except for few, most of the governments presented their budgets before their respective council after the beginning of the new financial year.

Sub-section (1) of section 112 contains that “before the commencement of the next financial year, every Nazim shall, after the laying of the budget by the Provincial Government, within the prescribed period, present the budget for approval by the respective Council before the beginning of such financial year — provided that the charged expenditure may be discussed but shall not be voted upon by the Councils.”

Whereas, sub-section (5) of section 112 makes it is binding on all the district governments to get their budgets passed from the councils in a period not exceeding 14 days of the new financial year.

It reads: “In case a budget is not approved by a Council before the commencement of the financial year to which it relates, the concerned local government shall spend money under various heads on pro-rata basis in accordance with the budgetary provisions of the preceding financial year for a period not exceeding fourteen days.”

Official sources said failure on the part of the district governments not only amounted to a violation of the LGO, 2001, it was creating trouble for the provincial government.

Unless all the district governments provided their annual budget documents to the provincial government, the later could not exactly know the sector-wise position of development expenditure.

“Under the Provincial Finance Commission award, district governments are required to spend 70 per cent of their independent development budget on social sector schemes, hence, in this way the provincial government could not know as to how much is being invested on the sub-sectors falling under the social sector if it does not get annual income and expenditure estimates from all the district governments in time,” said an officer.