PESHAWAR, June 4: The NWFP government’s instructions to the district governments to spend their developmental funds well before June 30 have left the newly established entities in the lurch, according to official sources.

Majority of the district governments, said the sources, were likely to get their funds lapsed because they lacked the capacity to utilize 100 per cent of the funds, released to them in March.

“How can we utilize over Rs100m in a span of less than three months,” a district coordination officer told Dawn on request of anonymity.

One of the budget-makers of the provincial government told Dawn that the move was well in line with the past practice which had been introduced to improve financial management at the departmental level.

“This enables the government to properly close its annual accounts well in time - June 30 every year,” said the budget- maker, though conceding that the move was counter-productive for the newly-formed district governments which came into being hardly nine months back and had little knowledge about the delicacies involved in budget-making process.

Earlier, the same exercise was used to be carried out by the heads of the provincial government’s departments, said the sources.

Provincial government, said the sources, put hundreds of millions of rupees at the disposal of each of the district governments for development purposes with instructions to utilize the same by June 30 — the end of the current financial year.

An executive district officer of one of the district governments told this scribe that spending 100 per cent of the funds provided to the district governments in March would be next to impossible for majority of the newly formed entities.

“Not only that it is not possible for the newly established governments, apparently, due to the fact that they lack the capacity, all the more it is not humanly possible for the local governments to meet such instructions during the first year of their establishment,” said the DCO.

Similar instructions have also been issued to the political agents of all the seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) leaving them ‘no where’ to ensure 100 per cent utilization of the funds left at their disposal.

According to sources, the issue was also brought to the corps commander, Peshawar, Lt Gen Ali Mohammed Jan Orakzai by one of the political agents during a recently held meeting.

The restriction, said the sources, was not only likely to hit the district governments as most of them were fearing getting substantial amount of their funds lapsed, it might also result in the precious financial resources going down the drain.

Explaining the point, an EDO told this scribe that if the district governments resorted to make advance payments - in an attempt to save their funds from getting lapsed - to their contractors against the unfinished developmental works they might lose their funds.

“In such a situation, the contractors may resort to default by leaving the work assigned to them incomplete,” said the official.

The sources said that though the district governments had been told that the funds lapsed so would be reallocated to them in the next financial year, there appeared to be least possibility of their getting the lapsed funds back as it had never happened.