NAWABSHAH, July 10: District government Nawabshah had failed to utilise Rs319 million during last fiscal ending on June 31, while most of the group offices also failed to submit budget management forms to the Zila Council.

Information collected from the District Accounts Office on Tuesday revealed that out of Rs1,953 million, including development funds of Rs1,634 million only Ra114 million was utilised on the purpose by June.

Out of Rs1,144 million for salary components of all groups of offices of district government, an amount of Rs1,017 million was utilised leaving behind a sum of Rs127 million. In non-salary component, an amount of Rs71.8 million could be utilised out of total Rs234 million.

In the ADP and the CCB schemes, Rs300 million were utilised with Rs114 million only in June 2007 out of total Rs360 million. In Sindh Devolved Social Services Programme (SDSSP), Rs325,000 could be utilised from total budget of Rs57.43 million.

Similarly, an amount of Rs8 million out of Rs12.8 million of sugar cess funds and an amount of Rs4.99 million of the OZT had been utilised. In education sector reforms, out of total funds of Rs12.2 million, not a penny was utilised throughout the year.

Additional district accounts officer Nawabshah, Hassan Jan Changezi told Dawn that the office released a total of Rs114.00 million, including Rs65.06 million for roads, Rs11.5 million for public health engineering, Rs17.03 million for education works, Rs7.9 million for buildings, Rs8.07 million for sugar cess schemes and Rs4.9 million for the OZT.

The Budget Management forms (1-13) were supposed to be submitted to Zila Council and later to Accounts Committee by the executive district officer finance and planning after collecting them from all groups of offices of district government every month as per Sindh Local Government Ordinance but unfortunately the procedure was not followed in Nawabshah and most of offices failed to produce them. The forms included details of expenditures, excess and surrenders of the office of each month.

The Accounts Committee of the Zila Council kept reminding and writing the EDO Finance and Planning for submission of budget management forms in the council but the department failed to produce any details including its own throughout the year. Afterwards Syed Munir Shah, Chairman Accounts Committee tabled and got approved two resolutions in the budget session demanding the DCO Nawabshah to direct the EDO finance to submit the budget management forms in the council every month.

Commenting on the matter, Zila Nazim Faryal Talpur blamed the former DCO for bringing development activities in the district to a halt through his arbitrary decisions which delayed work on the ADP 2006-07 new schemes, left unfinished maintenance and repair works, stopped implementation of the National Gender Reforms Action Plan for Women Development and DERA-II. He did not process sugar cess and did not release health budget, as well.

She said the former DCO Ahmed Bux Khokhar not only stopped the releases of development funds but also for non-salary components of group of offices, including the Health department.