Annual Development Program: Foreign funded schemes should separately be mentioned in rupees: govt

KARACHI: Sindh government has instructed its departments that the amount for the projects to be financed through foreign assistance in next financial year's Annual Development Program (ADP) should separately be mentioned in rupees, indicating the expenditure on import of goods and services.

In its guidelines for the next ADP, provincial government stated that this is necessary because under certain aid agreements, the Government of Pakistan/Sindh is required to first incur the expenditure in local currency and thereafter the amount is reimbursed by the development partner/foreign donors.

The counterpart funds required for Foreign Projects Assistance must be ensured to be kept in each year's ADP as per commitments made with the international development partners, the guidelines suggested.

These guidelines indicated that departments and agencies concerned will formulate their programs after full deliberations with all the stakeholders concerned and executing agencies so that request for re-appropriation immediately after the commencement of the fiscal year can be avoided.

As a policy, the Planning and Development Department/Board would not entertain any request for re-appropriation during the period from July to December 2021.

The deputy commissioners will have to identify new schemes for the respective districts depending on the priority and need of those proposed schemes and incorporate in its development portfolio.

While forwarding the demand for ADP 2021-22, the department should also observe the 18th Amendment, i.e., division of subjects between the provinces and the federation.

A brief project profile and core objectives of the mega projects with total cost exceeding Rs500 million may be given separately and all development projects should be based on feasibility studies. In case of projects of infrastructure and production sectors costing Rs500 million and above, the feasibility study would be mandatory.

The project-oriented TORs should be prepared and experienced and professional consultants should be engaged for preparing feasibility studies.

In case of projects costing less than Rs500 million, it should be based on in-house feasibility study.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021