While major health projects are lying incomplete for the past many years, the ‘inefficient’ health department has caught everyone by surprise leaving three-fourths of the development funds unutilised and hence turning the tall claims of the Punjab government of terming health as a priority ‘sour’, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Interestingly, the department has a history of lapsing major chunks of development budget over the past few years. The Punjab government, on its part allocated a meager Rs 15.3 billion for various development schemes with fanfare in the last budget, while, releasing only Rs 8 billion. Interestingly, however the health department has been able to utilise only around Rs 4 billion or one-fourth of the allocated amount and half of the amount released.
Moreover, around Rs 600 million has been surrendered by various schemes, showing the inefficiency of the health planners. Similarly, in the previous fiscal year, the government allocated Rs 14.5 billion and released around Rs 8 billion while more than Rs one billion lapsed and millions of rupees were surrendered.
This year, however, health planners have gone a step forward by allowing three-fourths of the allocated amount to lapse. Senior bureaucrats have also raised eyebrows over the strange practice allowing billions of rupees to lapse every year in the most crucial sector in a province with a population of 90 million.
A senior finance department official said the practice of large amounts of money lapsing in the health department has being observed for the past three years, as before that, 90 percent of the funds were utilised. “It is the responsibility of the health secretary to find out the cause of the lapse and to fix it,” the official said. Another officer from the health department, seeking anonymity termed the ‘lack of planning, impulsive decision-making and the discontinuity of succeeding bureaucratic managers’ as the reason why major chunks of important funds lapsed.
“The reasons are different in case of different schemes. The four medical colleges announced by the government were impulsive decisions, the projects for which were initiated without the requisite work done. Construction work on the Sialkot Medical College was paused because of land dispute. The construction of the building had not been completed when the government announced that the classes would begin at the college.
A health official said: “The succeeding secretaries change the previous policies causing confusion. Fawad Hassan Fawad started the turn-key mode which was a lot quicker than the system already in place, but Jehanzaib Khan changed it and the incumbent secretary also followed his footsteps. The health officials also want maximum funds to be allocated for their schemes as more money means more commissions for them. They do not realise that their greed will ruin the crucial health sector.”
Stakeholders have raised serious questions about the utilisation capacity of one of the most important sectors which directly affect the lives and health of millions.
PMA President Dr Ashraf Nizami said it reflects the “ill-management” of the health department which allocates funds for projects which are not feasible and are initiated only to accommodate their favoured officials.
“In the past, it would have resulted in the suspension of the health secretary, as it is a clear-cut case of inefficiency,” he said, adding that it also puts to test the tall claims of any government, irrespective of any political party, considering the bureaucracy kept the funds unutilised.
Health Secretary Captain (r) Arif Nadeem admitted that the health spending of Pakistan is very low as compared to other third world economies.
In reply to a question on the lapsing funds, he said, “I took over somewhere around February and in the seven months that I have been in charge; I have not been able to fix the problem. The procurement is not streamlined and we have set up a procurement wing to solve the issue.
The chief minister is also concerned about this problem and we have started to tackle it right from the division level to avoid it next year.”
