PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has done away with the chief minister’s discretionary powers to dole out funds for members of the provincial assembly.

The discontinuation of block and umbrella allocations in the annual development programme on the chief minister’s orders has revealed in the KP ADP Policy, 2019, which the provincial cabinet approved in a meeting on Tuesday.

The policy prepared by the planning and development department has laid out 14 guiding principles for the allocation of development funds.

New ADP policy says no to projects in constituencies

According to it, the ‘simple’ distribution of funds across districts and constituencies will results in suboptimal use of public money, so investments should be made across the province in an integrated and holistic manner to maximise economic impact.

The policy said no development fund would be issued in the names of chief minister, minister or any MPAs of either treasury or opposition benches.

“The ADP is funded through tax-payers money and therefore the benefits attained through the spending is the right of public of KP and not a privilege for which the public representatives be thanked or given credit,” it said.

The policy said no new project would be approved that are constituency specific as that practice directly implied that the funds are the domain of the constituency of an MPA.

“The use of public funds needs to be governed based on government policy including this policy and any sectoral policies, need, value for money and a transparent approval process,” it said.

The police, however, said the project selection process would be open to input from general public and public representatives.

It added that the province had already discontinued the practice of development funds for MPAs.

“Other than any existing schemes already in the ADP where public funds has been spent and scrapping the project would mean loss to such outlay, no new schemes will be introduced from now on that are on constituency level,” it said.

The policy called for efforts to ensure that the projects in the ADP are approved prior to their inclusion by relevant forums departmental/provincial development working party

The key policy principle laid out the in the document said the investment made in the ADP needed to help develop the provincial economy and improve the lives of people and it should be at the heart of designing, allocating and executing development investments in the province

The policy called for aligning ADP formulation with other policy documents including PTI government’s 100 Days Plan, Sustainable Development Goals and Tribal Decade Strategy.

“It is expected that department will make effort to ensure that the ADP is not a compendium of PC-1s only, but is actually reflective of the priorities and goals set in these guiding documents,” it said.

The document said the ADP and budget shall be designed on the basis of sectoral allocations.

“This shall be done by first identifying overall sectoral share for each sector or department; and then by allowing the department concerned to have a significant say in how it would like to distribute its sectoral share across the current and development budget,” it said.

The policy, however, said by doing so, the department would have to consider the overall fiscal constraints and overall government policy, the sector’s previous allocations, quality of plans, expenditure and performance.

It said investment in the sectors of the public service delivery like teachers, doctors, judiciary, law-enforcement personnel and rescue staff was critical and would be prioritised. The policy also said spending on operation and maintenance of roads, schools and hospitals would be recognised as productive spending that actually impacted the performance, while service delivery of the government would also be prioritised.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2019