ISLAMABAD, May 14: The federal government has eventually decided to close the controversial Social Action Programme (SAP) on June 30, 2002, as it failed to achieve the objectives of improving the life of common man, both in the rural and urban areas.

A Social Sector Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (SSCC), presided over by Education Minister Ms Zubaida Jalal here on Tuesday, accepted the recommendations of the Planning Commission to close the SAP because of corruption, lack of ownership, and financial constraints.

However, the Planning Commission recommended that the trained staff at the federal and provincial level should be retained after proper test on the basis of merit. It also said that all ongoing programmes/projects, as well as accounting staff at the federal and provincial government level, should be retained till closing/finalisation of accounts of SAP-2 with donors for a period of six months (July-December 2002).

Necessary provision for staff expenditure should be made in the federal and provincial budgets 2002-2003, the Commission recommended.

The Planning Commission has proposed that all ongoing programmes/projects should be integrated into other health programmes and women development initiatives.

The meeting agreed that a number of problems, coupled with documentation requirements of the programme itself had adversely affected the outcomes of the programme. As a result, the SAP failed to make the desired progress in terms of coverage and quality.

The donors of SAP — the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and European Commission — in consultation with the government, have either withdrawn their financing or diverted their allocations for Drought Emergency Recovery Assistance (DERA) and to poverty reduction partnership based on Poverty Reduction Strategy programme of the government.

The SAP had been launched in 1993, envisaging an allocation of Rs400 billion up until 2002, against the total outlay of Rs600 billion (SAP-1 & 2).

The meeting also approved the recommendation of the Planning Commission that the social sector policies and programmes should be implemented as per Social Sector Reform agenda, and fully integrated into the Interim-Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP). The Commission also said that sufficient allocations should be made in the budget for 2002-2003 for the implementation of social sector reform programmes, and strong monitoring mechanism and evaluation arrangements be evolved within the framework of IPRSP/PRSP to monitor the progress regularly and submit periodical reports for the consideration of the cabinet committee on social sectors.

The meeting was attended by ministers for finance, health, labour & manpower, women development, environment & local government, Kashmir affairs, deputy chairman Planning Commission, minister for finance and planning, Sindh, representative of Punjab, minister for finance, excise and taxation, NWFP and minister for planning and development, Balochistan.