The Annual Development Program (ADP) of the MMA government for financial year 2003-04 came under fire in the NWFP assembly by the members both from treasury and opposition benches and was described as Bannu & Dir Development Program.
Bannu is the home district of Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani while Senior Minister Siraj-ul-Haq hails from Dir.
Leader of opposition Shahzada Muhammad Gustasip Khan urged on the government to take elected public representatives of the august house into confidence before the formulation of any such development program.
Criticising the ADP for the current financial year he said that it did not reflect the aspiration of the members as it was based on the directives of only chief minister.
"The constituencies of the opposition members have been totally ignored in the ADP as funds have been diverted only to the constituencies of the ruling party," Gustasip said.
MPA Abdul Akbar Khan of PPP from district Mardan attributed the ADP to what he called Bannu Dir Buner Development Program alleging that the development funds of all other districts had been shifted to the home districts of chief minister, senior minister and Buner district of the Speaker Bakht Jehan Khan.
He asked the government to inform the house that how many developmental schemes were approved in the current ADP and how many of them were executed.
Bashir Ahmad Bilour, parliamentary leader of ANP said ADP reflected performance of a government whereas the ruling party had ignored the elected representatives in its formulation.
Bilour also alleged that wrong and fictitious projections had been made by the Finance department in the ADP 2003-04 and added that the total size of the current ADP was Rs 14.69 billion whereas the total volume of Punjab's ADP was Rs 20 billion which was 63 percent of the total country. As against Rs 20 billion ADP of Punjab, the NWFP should have Rs 5 billion ADP.
The ANP leader said that NWFP would have to lose its claim of the poorest and backward province if they continued to make ADP of Rs 14 billion plus, as according to him, Punjab and Sindh could ask that the ADP size of the NWFP was much bigger than their development programs.
Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao of PPP-Sherpao described the ADP 2003-04 as over ambitious.
He informed that over 800 schemes had been slashed from the ADP 2003-04 due to mismanagement.
He said development schemes had been categorised by the MMA government under one two, three and four. Schemes categorised as number one were located in the district of chief minister.
He said the MMA had failed to get second tranche of the SAC_II whereas thrown forward liabilities amounted to Rs 76 billion.
Bannu, and Dir districts topped the priority list while Peshawar gone to seventh number, he added.
Qalandar Lodhi of PML (Q) complained that very nominal funds had been kept for development schemes in Abbotabad. He said, the government should ensure fair distribution of the resources amongst the districts.
Taking part in the discussion Deputy Speaker Ikramullah Shahid said ADP 2003-04 could be called the development programme of few districts, not the entire province. Both treasury and opposition were critical of the current ADP.
Ghazala Habib of PPP-Sherpao complained that no scheme had been given to her constituency PF-57 in Mansehra district, which was a declared backward district.
Poverty and unemployment in Mansehra was at its peak whereas the government had not taken any solid step to overcome those menaces.
Riffat Akbar Swati of PPP-Sherpaoin her speech said, the MMA Government had failed to get the required funding from the donor agencies due to mismanagement and poor planning on the part of economic managers.
As many as 961 schemes had been dropped from the ADP 2003-04 because of the fact.
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