PESHAWAR, Feb 20: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s Rs1.52 billion district development programme is in turmoil due to the district governments’ poor performance and their parent department’s failure to make them work, according to official account.

Delayed formulation of the district annual development programmes, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government and Rural Development’s failure to meet the November 30, 2011 deadline set for approving the district governments’ current financial year’s ADPs, and unimpressive utilisation of development funds against Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti’s special quota of Rs150 million funds are among a host of issues that will come under discussion in a special meeting scheduled for today (Tuesday) to review the district-based entities’ development affairs.

“District governments and their subordinate entities are in ruins amidst interference into their affairs by powerful politicians,” said an official source.

A majority of the 25 district governments got their current financial year’s ADPs approved from the local government and rural development department in January and February this year, after a delay of six to seven months.

The delay, according to officials, left them with around five months to jointly implement the provincial government’s Rs1.52 billion district development programme for the current fiscal.

The Chief Minister, scheduled to chair the review meeting, would be informed that 24 district ADPs had been approved with only one, from among the southern districts, awaiting approval.

Some 24 of the 66 TMAs (town/tehsil municipal administrations) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not got their ADPs approved until late January 2012 – after more than six months into the current financial year, according to an official document seen by Dawn.

The current fiscal year’s ADPs in the case of 12 TMAs, according to another document, remain to be approved as their preparations are in progress.

The local government and rural development department, said the official, had been tasked by the chief minister, in March 2011, to ensure that district and TMAs’ ADPs for the 2011-12 fiscal should be approved by November 30, 2011.

The department, according to the document, holds others responsible for its failure. As per the timeline set for ensuring an early approval of the district ADPs, members of the provincial assembly were required to identify new schemes in their respective district (union councils falling under their constituencies) by October 30, 2011.

Except for Bannu district, none other district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa could meet the deadline, said the official Similarly, the provincial government’s ban on releasing development funds to the district governments is being presented as a ‘major reason’ by the local government department for the delay in approving the district ADPs.

The ban, according to the official, remained effective from October 1, 2011 to November 17, 2011.

“How could the ban stop it (local government department) from preparing the ADPs,” said a finance manager, when asked about it.

District governments, he said, had been provided ample funds right at the start of the current financial year. Funds availability, he added, had never been an issue. It was the district government’s incapacity and political bickering on the part of politicians that, he added, were responsible for making a mockery of districts’ ADPs.

Of the Rs1.52 billion district development program, a sum of Rs912 million is to be spent by the 25 district governments and Rs382 million by 66 TMAs. Besides, a sum of Rs150 million would be spent on schemes that would be carried out on the Chief Minister Hair Hoti’s instructions, and remaining Rs75 million on schemes to be carried on the directives of the provincial finance minister Hamayun Khan.

The district governments had been released Rs456 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal against which, said the official, their total development expenditure stood at around Rs22 million. Out of Rs191 million released to TMAs during the first three months of the current financial year, total development expenditure by these entities stood at around Rs25 million.

A paltry expenditure of Rs18 million was recorded against chief minister’s quota of district ADPs of which Rs149 million had been released during the first three months of the current fiscal.

Of the Rs35 million released for carrying out development works directed by the provincial finance manager, the expenditure stood at slightly over Rs3 million during the first three months.

“Situation has not changed much at the end of the second quarter of the current fiscal,” said a local government department official.

A development planner said the district governments’ staff did not have the capacity to execute development schemes at fast pace. “They lack planning experience, most of them even don’t know preparing documents and maintaining official files,” said the planner, adding “they should at least know the fundamentals of planning which most of them don’t know.”

It was because of the district-based entities’ incapacity and political interference in their affairs that they could not spend around Rs583 million in the last financial year.

They are supposed to spend the last year’s left-over development funds this year, according to an official. Against that amount, they could jointly post a total expenditure of Rs230 million during the July-October period of the current financial year, said the official.