PESHAWAR, March 20: The NWFP government has not yet transferred the salary budget of local governments’ employees to district governments. “The NWFP is the only province where district governments have not been delegated the salary budget of their employees,” Lakki Marwat Nazim Humayun Saifullah said, while talking to this reporter. He said that all other provincial governments had transferred the salary budgets to respective district governments. But in the case of the NWFP, the issue had not been resolved as the provincial government fell short of fulfilling its commitment even during the current financial year, said Mr Saifullah, who is also a member of the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC).

“If Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan have transferred the salary budget to district governments then why it has not been done in the NWFP even though the four-year-term of the local governments is about to end,” said the nazim.

The number of public sector employees stands at slightly over 283,000. Of which about 72,000 are the provincial government’s employees and the remaining are posted at the disposal of 24 district governments.

At the time of presenting its annual budget for the 2004-05 financial year the provincial government had announced to delegate salary budget to respective district governments.

The commitment, according to official sources, was made in line with an agreement between the provincial government and the World Bank, which was financing the NWFP’s multi-sector reform programme through structural adjustment credit (SAC).

The sources said that the government did not transfer the salary budget to district governments because the NWFP finance department was of the view that the districts lacked the capacity to handle the salary account and service matters of the employees.

They said that in some of the cases district governments would face financial problems because, once the salary budget was transferred, it would be their responsibility to pay salary to their employees.

However, district government authorities rejected the claim. “They (finance department’s functionaries) are not transferring the salary budget because the provincial government will lose the fiscal space it has got by managing such a large portfolio,” said an account officer of a district government on the request of anonymity.

The annual salary bill of the NWFP government for the 2004-05 financial year comes to over Rs20 billion inclusive of the 15 per cent pay raise effected at the start of the current fiscal year in line with the federal government’s decision. A substantial amount of over Rs15.38 billion would serve the district governments’ employees’ salaries in the current financial year.

District governments were of the view that the finance department did not delegate the salary budget to them because the provincial government would lose the funds it accrued as saving.

The provincial government was supposed to transfer the salary budget to district governments by the end of the 2003-04 financial year, in accordance with its loan agreement with the World Bank.

After the government failed to meet the deadline it made a renewed pledge to delegate the same account in the current financial year. However, the move has not yet been executed.

“I cannot stop the salary of a school teacher (because of non-allocation of salary budget to district governments) as a punishment for remaining absent from school without fulfilling official procedures, hence, how can I be effective to ensure discipline,” said a district nazim.