PESHAWAR, May 12: The provincial government has informed the federal government that district governments of the Frontier province were finding it difficult to implement development schemes due to weak planning and lack of capacity to monitor development works.

Official sources told Dawn that the provincial government took the stand against the district governments during a meeting held recently with members of the Planning Commission, Islamabad.

Federal government representatives had been informed on April 13 that the district governments could not properly execute development schemes due to “weak planning and lack of capacity to implement and monitor development works”.

Official sources told Dawn that most of the district governments in the Frontier province did not have professional or experienced development planners.

“Very few of the districts have district officers (planning) who have work experience or knowledge of planning and executing development schemes,” a senior provincial public sector development planner told Dawn.

Official sources said that a large number of the district governments had district officers (planning) having no experience of planning development works or any knowledge about the technicalities involved in the planning process.

They said the province had a total of 24 districts out of which only five — Mansehra, Karak, Abbottabad, Buner and Charsadda districts — had district officers (planning) having any former experience in the department, and added that whereas in the remaining districts the posts had been filled by officers who had come from departments other than the Planning and Development department.

An official source said that in one case the post was held by a former magistrate.

Official sources attributed the situation to the shortage of development planners at the district level. They said that since the Planning and Development department lacked a sufficient number of development planners as it was understaffed, therefore it could not come to the help of district governments by placing ‘experienced’ officers at their disposal.

They said that at the time of the formation of the new local government system in 2001, several development planners had been transferred from the Planning and Development department and posted at various districts to help the newly-formed district governments. However, with the passage of time, the majority of district-based planners got themselves accommodated in various foreign-funded projects leaving the district governments without any experienced development planners.

They said that the non-availability of experienced staff was one of the major reasons behind the slow execution of development schemes at the district level. Besides, office work was also being negatively affected due to the appointment of inexperienced district officers.

An official said that the inexperienced staff did not know much about rules and regulations required to be fulfilled while carrying out development works, and added: “Sometimes their lack of knowledge about the relevant rules leads to complications undermining the pace of development work.”