PESHAWAR, July 24: The NWFP government will be required to take effective measures to raise further the monthly reconciliation rate of its different types of accounts in the current financial year, according to official sources.

The government has committed to raise monthly reconciliation rate of provincial receipts' accounts to 92 per cent, expenditure accounts to 94 per cent, suspense accounts to 92 per cent and inter-governmental accounts to 90 per cent during the 2004-05 financial year.

The province is required to meet these targets in fulfilment of a condition of its loan agreement with the World Bank by introducing reforms to improve public financial management and accountability under its medium-term provincial reforms programme.

"Fresh measures would shortly be introduced to do the needful in pursuance to accomplish the annual target," said a finance manager of the province.

According to reforms programme, the government is supposed to ensure 100 per cent reconciliation of its various accounts.

"The accounts of June, last, are required to be reconciled latest by the end of August," said the manager.

The NWFP recorded monthly reconciliation rate of 90 per cent, 93 per cent, 90 per cent and 85 per cent in the case of provincial receipts accounts, expenditure accounts, suspense accounts and inter-governmental accounts, respectively, during the 2003-04 financial year.

The position recorded in the last financial year reflected improvement in comparison with the 2002-03 financial year when the government had ended up with a poor rate of monthly reconciliation of accounts.

The province, according to official documents also submitted to the lending agency, had 75 per cent monthly reconciliation rate in the case of provincial receipts accounts, 51 per cent in respect of expenditure accounts.

While, the rate of reconciling suspense accounts and inter- governmental accounts in the 2002-03 financial year stood at 80 per cent and 84 per cent, respectively.

"There would be required extra effort and coordination on the part of the finance department, NWFP, the provincial accountant general office, the 24 district governments and line departments of the provincial government to achieve the annual target set for the 2004-05 financial year," said the official.

The move to ensure 100 per cent reconciliation of accounts with a gap of two months would enable the government to have timely and comprehensive information depicting clear picture of the provincial government and its attached entities' financial affairs.

"The province would stand brighter chances to win fresh credit lines from international donor agencies on the basis of reconciled statements of accounts in future," said the official.

The provincial government, the sources said, had been experiencing troubles in front of the international donor agencies as a result of wrong reporting under its different types of accounts including receipts, expenditure, suspense and inter- governmental accounts.

This move, hoped the official, would enable the province to avoid past practices when expenditure incurred under one head was mistakenly reported under a wrong head at the end of the AG office.