SHANGLA: Carrying out need assessment before preparation of budget at the district level is a milestone that the provincial government wants to achieve before the new local government system is put in place.

In this regard, Sub-National Governance (SNG) Programme has initiated a series of trainings on budget and meetings on expenditure review in Shangla district.

In one of such sessions conducted here the other day the heads of devolved departments were invited along with their budget and accounts officials. The session was held in the committee room of DC office and jointly chaired by additional deputy commissioner finance and planning and ADC general.

The session covered several issues related to expenditure review, need assessment and budget preparation.

The organiser said the first part of the session was based on expenditure review and orientation of line departments on expenditure review template.

He said it had been observed that a large amount of district expenditure was being conducted during the last quarter of each financial year.

One of the frequent arguments put forward by the line departments is the lack of timely releases and access to expenditure data, which is countered by the finance department citing lack of line departments’ financial management capacity.

It was stated that this adversely impacted the release procedure at the devolved level and hampered the service delivery at the grassroots level.

In response to such problems, SNG-II Programme North Cluster provided technical assistance for the development of an expenditure dashboard to facilitate the F&P wing to conduct a district-wide expenditure review.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2020