ISLAMABAD, Jan 6: Annual allocations for education and health sectors are alarmingly low, causing a serious setback to government’s efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a report published by the ministry of finance said on Thursday.

Although tracking of indicators in the education sector reflects an overall increase in gross and net enrolment rates both at pre-secondary and secondary levels, there is need to enhance budgetary allocations generally for social sectors and particularly for health and education sectors in the country, according to the report.

Education and health sectors represent core elements of the Poverty Reduction Strategy of the government, and the annual progress report of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for fiscal year 2009-10 estimates that actual expenditure in education stood at 1.87 per cent of GDP against the projection of 1.82 for 2009-10.

Although the expenditure in education as a percentage of GDP is above the target by 0.05 per cent, improvement is badly needed. Health sector fared better than education in its ratio of actual expenditure to GDP which is .37 per cent higher than PRSP target of .43 per cent of GDP.

Law and order has appeared as the third largest sector contributing to PRSP expenditures with an increase of 2.03 per cent during the current fiscal year over the previous year.

The report says that the overall budget allocated for pro-poor sectors during 2009-10 stood at Rs1,183,771 million. Shares of different sectors in total budgetary allocations for 2009-10 depict education holding the maximum share followed by subsidies, roads, highways and bridges and agriculture. Combined these four sectors account for 61.2 per cent of the total PRSP budgetary allocation for 2009-10.

Education, though contributes the maximum during 2009-10, its share has decreased slightly over the two years. A substantial reduction in the share of subsidies in total PRSP budgetary allocations in two years has been witnessed, amounting to 14.47 per cent point. Share of Agriculture to PRSP budgetary allocations decreased over the two years - .89 percent points.

Share of roads highways and bridges increased from 7.02 per cent during 2008-09 to 11.41 per cent during the current fiscal year. Health also gained in proportional contribution to PRSP budgetary allocation, from 7.05 per cent in FY 2008-09 to 9.36 per cent in 2009-10. Social Security and welfare holds 7.44 per cent during FY 2009-10, which is 2.24 per cent higher than the previous fiscal year. A major chunk of budget for social security and welfare is contributed by Benazir Income Support Programme, nearly 80 per cent of the budget for this sector.

At the aggregate level, PRSP expenditures deviated downward by 4.77 per cent as compared to original budgetary allocations which indicate under-utilisation of budgetary allocations.

The report says that abnormal spending has been observed in Peoples’ Works Programme-I.