Body formed on financial issues in AJK department

By Tariq Naqash in The Dawn, Mar 9
MUZAFFARABAD, March 8: Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider constituted on Monday a committee to sort out the contentious issue of the mode of payments in the Local Government and Rural Development (LG&RD) department, within a month.

The direction came in a meeting of Local Government Coordination Council, which was attended by LG&RD Minister Raja Naseer Ahmed Khan, Additional Chief Secretary (Development) Tariq Mahmood, Secretary Finance Abid Hussain, LG&RD Secretary Iqbal Mohiyuddin and others.

The LG&RD and finance departments, it may be recalled, had been at different wavelengths over the issue of utilisation of development funds by the former. While the former had been strongly advocating reversal to the previous practice whereby it had been making advance withdrawal of funds to execute its schemes, the finance department had been stressing that all payments should be made under the ‘Assignment Account System (AAS)’ in accordance with treasury rules and clear instructions of the federal government. Under the AAS, payments are made after execution of developmental work.

However, unwillingness of the LG&RD minister notwithstanding, the government had finally decided implementation of the AAS in the LG&RD department.Sources told Dawn that Monday’s meeting learnt ‘woes’ of the LG&RD minister vis-à-vis enforcement of the AAS following which the prime minister set up a committee, headed by secretary finance, to resolve all these issues within a month. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/body-formed-on-financial-issues-in-ajk-department-930