Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF) has approached co-chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Asif Ali Zardari, requesting him to take stern action against top officials of Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance who are creating hurdles in transfer of development projects to the institution, official sources told Daily Times on Friday.
Ghulam Murtaza Satti, head of Infrastructure Project Development Facility, told an internal meeting held on Friday that some corrupt elements in the relevant government departments are making efforts to “avoid IPDF because on this platform corruption becomes impossible for them”.
“However,” he told the meeting, “in this regard Asif Ali Zardari has been briefed, who will certainly take notice of these affairs.”
IPDF has proposed to the government to transfer 20 projects worth Rs 165 billion to it for completion under Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
An official at IPDF informed Daily Times that Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance were not facilitating the process of transfer of identified projects to IPDF.
The aim of the government is to complete important development projects with private sector participation and their investment and to reduce the load on government so that finances available with the government could be used for other important tasks, he added.
The government intends to promote public private partnership for infrastructure projects and $1 billion per annum private investment is likely in such projects.
Sources said that IPDF chief executive Ijaz Ahmed has resigned from his post and has already left for the United States. He was appointed by the Shaukat Aziz’s government.
Because of the widening fiscal deficit, the present government is facing mounting pressure to reduce the volume of PSDP by shelving a number of development projects, Satti told the meeting.
“According to the international financial institutions, about 7-8 per cent of GDP is required to be spent on infrastructure annually in developing states while in Pakistan this percentage is only 3-4,” said Satti, head of Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF), in a statement issued here after the meeting.
He said PPP co-chairman is fully cognizant of the situation and wants pace of development of infrastructure projects in the country accelerated. He has strictly instructed IPDF, Planning Commission and line ministries to strengthen their coordination and adopt a uniform strategy, he added.
He said that Mr Zardari had directed all departments concerned to involve private sector in more and more development projects as was being successfully done by IPDF.
He said that Mr Zardari had also instructed him to ensure speedy completion of the infrastructure projects being executed under PPP modality so that further projects could be initiated.
Satti said that the PPP framework was a pre-requisite for rapid economic growth. He also said that India has planned $391 billion investment in infrastructure in the next five years out of which $209 billion is expected to be invested by the private sector.
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