Rs. 6 bln released this week to pay outstanding bills on road development projects
A sum of Rs. 6 billion was released from the Treasury this week to make part payments of some of the outstanding bills of contractors who have undertaken vital infrastructure development projects such as rural road building, officials said.
They said the Government is grappling to settle outstanding bills of contractors running up to billions of rupees for the construction work of over 60,000 countrywide infrastructure and other development projects started by the previous regime without adhering to proper procurement procedures.
All relevant data of these projects have been collected by making use of an Integrated National Development Information System (INDIS), a unified IT system set up at the Treasury in 2011 on development projects funded by donors and the government, Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs sources revealed.
INDIS has a unifying platform with real-time and reliable data, which could then promote evidence-based and strategic decision-making on national development. It contains an advanced performance monitoring capability to track the performance and results of specific projects and activities as well as, at a broader level, of public entities and sectors.
INDIS is now being used to implement, and monitor public investment projects—development projects funded under the government’s capital budget during the previous regime. According to INDIS data and other relevant documents over 60,000 countrywide small and medium scale rural infrastructure development projects started by spending billions of rupees without proper procurement procedure since 2011 are at various stages of implementation.
Payments for contractors of these projects are yet to be made to settle their outstanding bills even partly, a senior official of the ministry said adding that although there were discrepancies in estimates of expenditure, the government has to abide by the contractual agreements signed by former secretaries of the Economic Development Ministry, a senior official of the ministry said.
The Ministry is now assessing project performance and results in real-time and will take decisions on corrective actions and resource allocation making maximum use of INDIS a decision-support tool designed to assist policymakers.