World Bank tells govt to stop funding devolved subjects

The World Bank has suggested a number of measures to address Pakistan’s chronic fiscal deficits, including a cut to the funding of projects that now fell within the provinces’ domain. Briefing journalists, the World Bank’s senior macroeconomist Derek Chen said the federal government was still spending around Rs328bn every year on federal ministries devolved to the provinces around 15 years ago. “This is a duplication of task,” he said, adding that the devolution process should have been completed at the earliest. Let the provinces invest and develop health, sports, education and similar other areas so that the federal government could take care of its core responsibilities, Mr Chen added. He said Rs315bn or so from the federal Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) funding also go to the provincial development projects. On top of it, the federal government spends Rs70bn to fund Higher Education Commission (HEC) despite education being a provincial subject under the 2008-10 devolution process. The World Bank official said the federal spending on devolved subjects stood at 0.39pc of GDP in 2009 and increased to 0.59pc in 2022.