KARACHI, Nov 5: Provincial minister for finance, planning and development, Dr Abdul Hafiz Sheikh, on Monday, while emphasizing the significance of monitoring and evaluation aspect, said that it is prerequisite to ensure success of all development schemes.

He stated this during his address at a workshop on “Monitoring and Evaluation of Development Projects”, organized by the Monitoring and Evaluation Cell, Planning and Development Department, Sindh government.

The occasion was largely attended by representatives of provincial government departments, their attached organizations and District Coordination Officers involved in development projects in Sindh.

The focus of the workshop was mainly methodology used in monitoring and evaluation for development and foreign-aided projects.

While drawing the attention of participants of the workshop at scores of development schemes initiated during the last decade which proved to be disastrous, with huge investments going to sheer waste, he said that we all critically need to analyze the core reasons which caused their debacle, eroding the trust of the masses in the process.

He stressed upon the concerned officials of planning and development department not to confine their activities to attending meetings, seminars and workshops, but to create leadership qualities to spur development activities and give impetus to their subordinates to discharge their responsibilities amicably.

“Higher authorities of the province, including the governor, ministers or secretaries can issue directions for implementation on their decisions, but they are unable to influence and change the prevailing state of affairs.

Unless lower-cadre officials activate themselves for execution of development schemes, the mere issuing of executive orders cannot redress problems,” he added.

He reminded that success of newly-introduced system of power devolution largely depends on people as their role would be vital for monitoring schemes.—PPI