ISLAMABAD, May 4: The federal government’s education division was able to utilise only 35 per cent of the total development funds in the first nine months of the current financial year, according to figures released by a non- governmental organisation here on Sunday.

The government had allocated Rs6.5 billions in the budget 2007-08 for development projects to be implemented by the education division. However, it was revised downward to Rs5.984 billions during the second quarter (September-November 2007) review carried out by the Ministry of Education in January.

By the end of the third quarter (March 2008), the total utilisation of development allocations in the education sector was Rs2.3billions — 35 per cent of the original allocation and 38 per cent of the revised allocation.

Total amount released in the first nine months was Rs3.742 billions, which means that 61 per cent of released funds was utilised by the end of March.

The Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives, Pakistan (CPDI-Pakistan), which released the figures under its Budget Watch Programme, termed the spending of the funds “very slow” in a sector that needed development activities very badly.

According to CPDI, the education division in 2006-07 was able to utilise only 20 per cent of the original allocation by the end of third quarter in March 2007 and 33 per cent by the end of the financial year in June 2007.

The performance has improved this year as the utilisation rate has improved from 20 per cent last year to 35 per cent this year during the first nine months.

However, more effective measures needed to be taken on urgent basis to further improve the performance to meet the challenges in the education sector, says the CPDI.

The reasons for low utilisation of funds include the late releases by the Ministry of Finance, inter-departmental differences, non-availability of technical staff, failures in appointing full-time project directors, delayed consultant reports, late issuance of work orders and late submission of reports or requests for release of funds by the related implementing organisations.

It was also noted that in many cases budgetary allocations were made without first completing the approval process, which resulted in delays in the implementation of various project.

“It is a matter of serious concern that the education division and other related ministries or departments have been unable to get these problems fixed over the past several years,” the CPDI observed.

Delays were particularly noticed in the implementation of those development projects which were implemented by the provincial governments but through funding from the federal government.

It was partly because of significant delays in the transfer of funds from the federal government to the provincial authorities and then to the relevant provincial ministry onward to the relevant district and the project.

It seems that the concerned authorities had failed to address these problems and, as a result, the long delays in transfer of funds continued to undermine the efficient implementation of development projects, the CPDI said.

For the current financial year, the government had committed funds for 104 development schemes under the education division. However, not even one rupee could be spent on 39 such schemes by the end of March.

The schemes with zero utilisation included, among others, establishment of colleges in Shangla, Tando Bagho, Islamabad and Turbat. They also include programmes under the Education for All including programme for missing facilities, pilot project on education for all in an inclusive setting (Norwegian government backed), and capacity building of teachers training institutions.

The Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2007-08 included an allocation of Rs772 million for 24 cadet colleges. However, the Ministry of Education has not been able to spend any amount on 13 of these cadet college schemes by the end of March, the CPDI said.