Pakistan considering to stop financing provincial development projects

Islamabad [Pakistan], May 8 : The Pakistan government is mulling stopping financing provincial development projects amid a tight fiscal position.

The country has decided to instead focus on five strategic sectors, exports, energy, equity, e-Pakistan and environment (5Es), in the next year's Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), Dawn reported.

A senior government official told Dawn that the planning and development ministry had moved a summary to the prime minister for his consent to cap the provincial development projects in the PSDP 2023-24 to be presented to parliament as part of the next year's budget and also restrict the PSDP to 5Es.

The decision was taken at a recent meeting, presided over by Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal, with a view to moving forward to finalising the next year's development budget with clarity after the prime minister's consent.

According to Dawn, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has been given a suggestion that only those projects should be included in the PSDP which have strategic importance and no provincial project of devolved responsibilities should be part of the PSDP, except for the projects of compelling significance which should be funded on a 50:50 basis by the Centre and provinces.

"The provincial development projects in federal PSDP should be capped forever," the meeting concluded.

The media recently reported that as Pakistan continues to grapple with economic challenges due to a shortage of foreign exchange reserves, citizens find it tough to buy everyday essentials like flour, oil and gas.

Despite daily necessities such as gas, electricity, petrol and flour getting more and more out of reach or prohibitively expensive for the average person to acquire, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government is hardly paying heed to the plight of the people, Pakistan's vernacular media reported.