Sheikh Pervez Ahmed, Acting President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has expressed dissatisfaction over the low disbursement of funds for public sector development projects as it will affect the pace of work on developmental projects, cause more delays in their timely completion leading to costs overruns and keep the country deprived of private sector-led economic growth. He said being a developing country, Pakistan needs to spend more on development works to improve its economy, but low spending on PSDP will keep the country deprived of better economic growth. 

 

He said the government had allocated Rs.700 billion in budget 2015-16 for public sector development projects, but disbursed only Rs.429 billion during the first 10 months (July-April) of this fiscal year showing which reflects its lack of commitment towards sustainable economic development of the country.  He said government had claimed that PSDP 2015-16 will help in achieving long term development objectives given in Vision 2025 by allocation of enhanced resources to development projects, however, he was afraid that low spending on development works would hamper these efforts and hold back the economy from exploiting its full development potential.

 

He said as per government’s approved disbursement mechanism, 80 percent of the total PSDP allocations should be utilized in the 10 months of a fiscal year, but government disbursed 67 percent of these funds during the first 10 months of financial year 2014-15 and only 61 percent during the same period of this fiscal year, which should be a cause of concern for the policymakers. He said low spending on PSDP would deprive private sector of new business opportunities and retard overall GDP growth of the country. 

 

He said Pakistan needs a strong network of roads, especially from rural areas to markets to facilitate the growth of business activities, but he lamented that only 40 percent of the allocated funds were disbursed to road sector so far which would impede all efforts to improve roads network in the country. 

 

Sheikh Pervez Ahmed said that government should avoid making cuts in development budget to limit fiscal deficit of the country as it will have negative implications for the economy. He urged that government should further enhance budget allocations for development works as it will create new opportunities for growth of private sector, attract more foreign for the country, encourage industrialization, generate lot of jobs, reduce poverty and pave way for sustainable economic growth of the country.