Present Govt has credit to provide uplift funds for all MNAs across the board: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday told the National Assembly that the present government has the credit to provide development funds to all MNAs across the board while in the past the Opposition legislatures were always deprived of such funds.

Responding to a question of Salahuddin regarding construction of a private hospital in Hyderabad from government funds, he said, development funds were released in three categories i.e Public Works -1, which were fixed for each MNA and under this category Rs 10 million were released to each MNA annually.

The Prime Minister said in Public Works two category, budget was passed for government sector development programme every year and the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), which outlay was more than Rs 300 billion for the current financial year.

He said Prime Minister's prerogatives funds were provided for small projects and the Prime Minister can give it to any body, adding, if any private institution wanted to get this fund they can submit their application to the Prime Minister Secretariat and it was the prerogatives of the Prime Minister to relax its criteria.

To a question of Khurum Dastagir, the Prime Minister said, when he was Speaker of the National Assembly during Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto's government he had given a ruling that development funds to all MNAs should be released across the board.

However, he added that Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto's stance was that it was the prerogatives of the government and Speaker was not part of the government.

He said the Opposition members were always deprived of development funds in the past but present government was the first one in the history of Pakistan which has the credit to release uplift funds for MNAs from the treasury and opposition benches across the board.

The Prime Minister said that he monitored the development projects for one hour daily.