"The government has redirected $ 40 million non-utilized sums from the World Bank (WB) projects, which would be used by the provinces and the federal government for equipment purchases and responses to coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak in the country."
This was stated by the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Hammad Azhar, here on Friday.
The minister tweeted, "Following non-utilized sums have been immediately redirected from World Bank projects and are now cleared to be used by provinces and fed government for Covid-19 equipment purchases and responses: Punjab $ 7.5 million, Sindh $ 10 million, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa $ 7 million, Balochistan $ 2 million and federal government $ 13.5 million." He further said that "funds allocation between provinces is not determined by federal government. It is simply a reallocation of non-utilized funds going back into the same provinces where they were lying unused earlier. The above $ 40 million is a part of $ 600 million package being arranged."
The Ministry of Planning has cleared an amount of $ 238 million from the WB funding and endorsed another $ 350 million funding offered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in support for the COVID-19 emergency response, and to address the socio-economic disruption associated with it.
Azhar on Thursday said that government is finalizing an approximately $ 600 million emergency package with multilaterals for dealing with Covid-19 outbreak across the country.
It includes reallocations and fresh financing.
"This will be in addition to local funding that is being made available," he had said.
The minister had said that emergency funds from the ADB supported NDRMF (approx Rs 7.5 billion) was also being made available for the NDMA.
This is in addition to funds already made available by Finance Division for immediate use by authority.
Reallocations from foreign funded projects were also being diverted towards it.
"I would like to thank the People's Republic of China for providing grant assistance of $ 4 million along with 300,000 medical face masks, 10 ventilators and other equipment. They have also undertaken to arrange for much greater number of ventilators," Azhar said.