PESHAWAR, June 21: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government`s throw-forward liability the funds it will need to complete its existing development projects portfolio will rise to Rs343 billion in the next financial year, according to officials.

The government has allocated Rs97.4 billion to spend on its development projects under the annual development programme (ADP) of the financial year 2012-13. However, in cumulative terms the total completion cost of the projects that make part of the new ADP comes to Rs343 billion.

`It`s a huge throw-forward liability for a province that has a limited fiscal space,` said an official of the provincial government. The size of the throw-forward liability will register an increase by around Rs18 billion in the new fiscal year as compared to the outgoing financial year`s level, said the official.

The growing throw-liabilities, according to official planners, put a bolt on the future provincial government`s development preferences. The next government (that will come after the next general elections in few months time) would be occupied to complete the development agenda set by the sitting government, said a development planner.

`No one is bothered about it as they (the sitting government) are only thinking about their term in office, said the official. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa`s ADP for the financial year 2012-13 consists of 940 development projects, including 632 ongoing projects, 254 new projects (that would be launched in the nextfiscalyear.

The total completion cost of the on-going projects comes to Rs202 billion and another sum of Rs53 billion will be needed to complete the new projects.

The provincial government`s focus, said the development planner, was on the infrastructure development projects, constructing roads, buildings of healthfacilities and schools.

The total completion cost of the road projects, according to the official, comes to over Rs43 billion, in the case of health sector facilities it comes to over Rs36.6 billion. Another cumulative sum of Rs24.8 billion will be needed to complete the elementary and secondary education sector related projects.

`The development agenda is at risk of getting jeopardised if the provincial fiscal space decreases in the next couple of years,` said the official.

The sitting provincial government, said the official, had a greater fiscal space due to the Rs25 billion annual transfers it was receiving on account of net hydel profit arrears under an agreement with the federal government.

The province, according to the agreement, would receive the annual Rs25 billion hydel profit arrear till 2013-14, following which the provincial government`s revenue receipts would dip sharply.

An increased volume of throw-forward liability, said a finance department official, was never preferred as it left you with squeezed future options.

`The provincial government`s nondevelopment expenditure, particularly, on account of staff wages and the retired employees` pension has been on the constant rise, draining out the pre-cious provincial resources,` the official told Dawn.

Similarly, the total completion cost of the foreign-funded development projects comes to Rs75.8 billion of which the government, according to the development planner, had committed to raise Rs7.4 billion.

`When you over stretch yourself you take extra pressure, straining out energy,` said the official. He said the government`s development portfolio was so huge that it would take many years to complete all of the 940 development projects.`Many of the provincial development agencies and line departments are over burdened because of a large number of development works, failing to complete the projects within the planned timeframe,` said the planner.

A senior development planner told Dawn that the Planning and Development Department in a recent exercise dropped several schemes that were marred by slow progress and poor planning, rightsizing the government`s development project portfolio.

`There were projects that have been making part of the ADP for around ten years with no progress being done on them by the departments concerned, said the official, adding the planning department excluded all such projects to focus on the high priority development works.

The exercise helped the provincial government to curtail the size of its ADP. Previously, the government agencies needed on average 2.7 years to complete its projects, but now it would take 1.5 years to complete its development works, said a finance department official.