PESHAWAR: Special assistant to Chief Minister on Information and Public Relations Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani said here Sunday that the province was facing no financial crunch.
\nThrough a statement he termed media reports appearing in a section of the press regarding financial crunch in the province as baseless.
\nMushtaq Ghani clarified that the financial position of the province was satisfactory and sufficient resources were available to meet the requirements of the provincial and district government departments.
\nThe Finance Department, he said, had released a sum of Rs194 billion for development projects and is inclusive of Rs23 billion for salaries of employees in the devolved departments. Additionally, he said Rs5 billion have been released for operational expenditures of the devolved departments Besides, he said more than Rs5 billion has been released for development expenditures in three tiers of the local governments while Rs400 million were provided to the local councils as grants.
\nFurther releases for three tiers of the local governments have been planned for later this month, he added.
\nMushtaq Ghani said a major chunk of resources was transferred by the central government.
\n\u201cTherefore, the financial management of the province remained dependent, to a certain extent, on the uncertain transfers by the federal government,\u201d he argued.
\n\u201cIn a recent meeting with the federal minister for water and power, the provincial government put forward a request to immediately transfer Rs15 billion as arrears of net hydel profit,\u201d he pointed out.
\nHe explained that these arrears were agreed to be transferred to the provincial government under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the federal and provincial governments.
\nMushtaq Ghani said the MoU has also been endorsed by the Council of Common Interests (CCI).
\nHowever, the amount has not been transferred to the provincial government despite lapse of more than three months of the current fiscal year, he added.
\nWhile commenting on the performance of the Finance Department, Mushtaq
\nGhani said that governance had been improved over the last three years by providing adequate financial resources for priority services sectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PESHAWAR: Special assistant to Chief Minister on Information and Public Relations Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani said here Sunday that the province was facing no financial crunch. Through a statement he termed media reports appearing in a section of the press regarding financial crunch in the province as baseless. Mushtaq Ghani clarified that the financial position of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-peshawar"},"yoast_head":"\n