KARACHI: The actual expenditure incurred by the Sindh government in the development sector grew by an average of nearly 17 per cent during the last five years, according to an official document published by the provincial finance ministry.

“[This growth] was quite significant and spelled out the provincial government’s active engagement in development activities in Sindh,” the ministry said.

Compared to this growth in total Annual Develo­pm­ent Plan (ADP), the increase was just 4.21pc when it comes to federal government or donor funding.

However, the non-development portfolio of the province too saw a growth of around 13pc on average during the five years, it said.

The major categorisation of Sindh’s Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) spending plan for 2016-17 shows its development outlay equals Rs265.9 billion, significantly higher than previous year’s Rs175.55bn. The provincial ADP for the current fiscal year is Rs225bn against last year’s Rs142bn. The total outlay included Rs28.8 billion as external or donor-assisted component and Rs12.1bn for federally funded projects.

A separate sector of Thar Coal Infrastructure Develo­pment is inducted in the development plan. Besides, Rs50.3bn has been allocated for Karachi’s various infrastructure projects.

Similarly, the ADP allocation of Rs53.5bn has been made for Hyderabad, Rs22.7bn for Sukkur, Rs27.3bn for Larkana, Rs26.9bn for Mirpurkhas and Rs18.9bn for Benazir­abad division.

Under the head of the non-development portfolio, the current revenue expend­iture has been pitched at Rs572bn for the current fiscal year, which amounts to 13.9pc increase over the revised estimates of last fiscal year.

The document said a typical growth of 11.4pc was recorded in the actual expenditure during 2010-11 to 2014-15. During 2016-17, there is a “significant” increase in the allocations for some of the smaller departments, which perform important social welfare functions but generally get smaller share in resource allocations. These departments include social welfare, special education, sports and youth affairs, women development and minorities’ affairs.

The finance ministry said in the document that it had managed to keep a check on unproductive government expenditure and a whole set of public financial management reforms aiming at more transparency and accountability was being introduced.

It added that there had been a ban on procurement of new vehicles except for the operational vehicles for police, hospitals, etc.

“Procurement of other luxury items like air conditioners, etc, has also been kept under control. These measures have saved the resources to spend on the development portfolio,” it said.

It said such savings had also helped the government in diverting more resources to such productive use as maintenance of roads and buildings.

“This [financial] year, Rs4bn was provided for repairs of the roads through which some major roads have been rehabilitated in all the districts. Similarly, Rs401m was spent on the repair and maintenance of major teaching hospitals and Rs9.58bn on other government buildings.

The finance ministry said it had been following a policy of spending major portion of the government’s budget on five priority sectors, including health, education, road infrastructure, irrigation and transport.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2017