Hence the approval followed by, one would hope, prompt disbursements may well lead to the start of these valued projects. What is of serious concern to economists, however, is that these projects may be financed by borrowings from the commercial sector that would simply escalate the indebtedness of the provincial government with a consequent negative impact on the rate of inflation. In other words, it is extremely important for the provincial government to ensure that the money spent on these schemes is not through additional borrowing at the market rate but through reprioritising the current non-development expenditure and/or increasing revenue.
Political pundits accuse the federal government as well as provincial governments, not excluding Punjab, of engaging in development activity on a fast track basis as a prelude to the general elections that have to be scheduled at the latest by mid-May next year. Approving development projects at this late stage, so argue these analysts, is a strategy designed to ensure that the voters would forget the non-performance of the past four and a half years and vote for the party in power; however, one will have to wait for the election results to assess the validity of this contention. In addition, once the caretakers are installed, which maybe as early as next month releases for development funds maybe stalled till after the elections. Reports indicate that the PPP strategists are advising their party leadership to agree to March polls as loadshedding would have a minimal negative impact on their votes at that time which would automatically imply a caretaker set-up by the middle of January.
There is also a growing concern that the federal and provincial governments are focused on spending their entire development budgets for the current fiscal year before the elections - a fact that would seriously compromise the capacity of the next government to perform its duties adequately till the next fiscal year. To forestall this happening, it is imperative that all projects/schemes identified post-budget may be approved by the concerned parliament as well to ensure a consensus.
Some analysts maintain that these 60 schemes have been approved on the insistence of PPP's coalition partner, the MQM, which is deeply concerned over the lack of development expenditure in Sindh's two major cities - Karachi and Hyderabad. Whichever party is responsible for the approval of these schemes the target beneficiaries are the vulnerable and the poor and hence they must be supported. Thus irrespective of the motive behind a development scheme the fact that it reaches its target group will be a source of comfort to the people of the province. One would hope in future that governments - federal and provincial - do not wait till the end of their terms to begin pro-poor projects.