LAHORE, Aug 9: Punjab Law, Local Government and Public Prosecution Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja has said the funds stuck in the citizen community boards were likely to exceed the provincial budgets if steps were not taken for timely utilisation.

Speaking at the concluding session of the two-day workshop on “Citizen community boards’ mainstreaming and civic engagement” organised by the World Water and Sanitation Programme for South Asia and the Punjab local government department here on Wednesday, the minister said accumulation of billions of rupees in CCBs accounts for a lack of utilisation provided a serious cause for concern. Steps were required for accelerating the utilisation to prevent further accumulation of funds.

He said the CCB funds had remained unutilised at certain places but there were also areas where these had been maximally utilised. “What needs to be seen is that who has utilised the funds and for what purpose because the scheme is need-based and meant for helping the deserving. It would become meaningless if the rich take away Rs80 million from it by contributing Rs20 million,” he said.

He said quite a few district governments had provided fictitious information about development. Such districts were developed on paper but there was no development on the ground. In actual fact, the people in such districts had suffered because the provincial government had reduced financial assistance to the district governments considering the places developed.

There were also the district governments which did not formulate annual development programmes and planned their expenditure on a monthly basis, he said.

The minister said funds had accumulated in the CCB accounts because the district and town nazims had not bothered to motivate the people to participate in the scheme. The project, he said, had replaced the matching-grant scheme but contribution to it was in the form of money instead of labour.

He said the government had the political will to make the CCB scheme successful and it would make necessary amendments to its rules for the purpose in consultation with the National Reconstruction Bureau. He said problems had been created because development and administration had been combined under the new local government system.

The district and town/tehsil nazims and executive district officers (community development) required to be made to understand the spirit of the scheme. He said the community awareness was also necessary which could only be created by the elected representatives as they were not only aware of the local problems but had also contacts with the people at the grassroots.

Responding to a proposal, he said the EDOs (community development) would be directed to submit reports on CCB projects every month. Technical assistance would be made available for these projects and assistant directors (local government) would be made district officers (community development). He said the impression that the opposition was denied share in development funds was unfounded.

The participants pointed out that implementation of the projects under the CCB scheme was delayed because the proposals were accepted by December every year and included in the budget for the next financial year. They stressed the need for approval of the projects during the next session of the concerned district or town/tehsil councils after the submission.

They said the CCBs should be registered not only at the district level but at tehsil/town level as well. A CCB should be allowed to start more than one project on the basis of a single account instead of opening a separate account for every project. The boards should also be allowed to get the projects executed through contractors.

Yet another demand was that the powers of EDO (community development) should be decentralised for registration of smaller projects.