Friday, October 20, 2023
The PSDP listed the projects to be submitted to the CCER for consideration.
The Finance Minister will chair the CCER meeting after returning from Morocco.
“An exercise to abandon ongoing provincial projects,” says a top official.
ISLAMABAD: The Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) has decided to fund only extremely important development projects in the provinces with 50% of the funds allocated by the federal government and the provinces, The News reported.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Planning has identified all the projects listed in the Public Sector Development Programs (PSDP) to be submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Recovery (CCER) with a view to scrapping all such schemes and saving Rs 314 billion in austerity measures.
The CCER session will be chaired by the Minister of Finance Dr. Shamshad Akhtar after his return from Morocco, where he is attending the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"The exercise to drop provincial nature projects from the PSDP list is underway," a top government official said on Thursday.
In the last Apex Committee meeting of SIFC, it was decided that development projects of a provincial nature would in future be undertaken only with a cost sharing of 50%:50% of the funds borne by both the Center and the Provinces. “Unless the provincial government bears an equal share of 50% of the cost, the Center will not provide its share of funding,” another senior official source confirmed while talking to The News.
A senior official said the decision had already been taken by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC). The SIFC executive committee is scheduled to meet early next week to do all the work to present it to the apex committee under the leadership of caretaker prime minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar in the coming weeks.
So far, SIFC has failed to complete the much-anticipated multi-billion-dollar deals to attract investment, but it is making all-out efforts to attract foreign investors in the fields of mining, IT, agriculture and others.
One of SIFC's future agendas to consider mechanisms for corporate agriculture is on the table. Although some initial work was done during the tenure of the late General (retd) Musharraf, its basic framework still needs to be implemented in a detailed manner before pacts with international investors can be made. However, it is crucial to hire technical experts to draft international agreements and manage negotiations on the back of several past agreements ending in disputes due to lack of technical capacity.
Meanwhile, various Ministries/Departments have been directed to take steps to ensure savings under austerity plans. The Treasury has instructed all its wings and associated departments to review all foreign visits and ban any it deems necessary next week.
