Most ministries would fail the spend-your-development-budget test.
Only six of the 25 ministries spent more than half their development budgets in the first six months of the year.
Only six of the 25 ministries spent more than half their development budgets in the first six months of the year.
Ministry of Women’s Affairs spent 67.8 percent; rural rehabilitation and development 66.5 percent; and economy 66.2 percent.
The worst performers in 2013 were defence (11 percent), interior affairs (2.6 percent) and parliamentary affairs which did not touch its development budget.
Most directorates also have failed to spend more than half their budgets, according to a Ministry of Finance (MoF) report. The most efficient has been the High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption and National Directorate of Security, both independent directorates that have spent 95.6 percent and 71.3 percent respectively of their budgets. The worst performing include the Environment Protection Agency which has spent less than 50 percent of its budget.
The developmental budget for 1392 (21 December, 2012 to 31st December, 2013) was 157 billion Afs (2.7 billion USD) – 46 billion Afs (791 million USD) more than the previous year.
The slow pace of development is not because of lack of money, says Abdul Qadir Jailani, director of information and public relations in MoF. “The reports of the first six months show that most of the ministries have not been able to spend their budget in an acceptable limit despite the availability of the money in treasury,” he told Killid. The low levels of spending were “due to lack of capacity”, he believes.
Sadeqi Zada Neli, MP from Daikundi, says, “I hope the graph of expense of ministries goes up or they should explain why.”
Interior Affairs
Considering the serious security problems in the country the ministry should have spent more than the mere 2.6 percent it used up from the development budget.The allocated budget was 158.5 million USD.
However, Dr Elham Uddin Wardak, director of finance and budget, Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoI), challenges the figure. He says the ministry’s spendings for the first six months were 38.58 percent of the budget.
He insists 7.17 million USD that should have been received from international donors was not given to the MoI. “No money was transferred … while it was included in the total budget of MoI,” he explains.
In fact, the ministry’s level of expenses would rise to 70 percent by end of the year.
MoI considers lack of capacity and the lengthy process of requisitioning the money as inhibiting the MoI’s development goals.
Culture and Information
Ministry officials claim their work was hindered by the Ministry of Finance’s (MoF) failure to release their development budget.
Mohammad Zahir Hassan, director of finance in the Ministry of Information and Culture says they sent 11 requests for budget payments to MoF. The blame was on the lack of coordination between departments in MoF.
He insists there wasn’t money to pay for restoration work in some monuments, undertaken by the ministry. “If MoF had responded positively to our requests our spending would have risen to more than 50 percent,” he claims. The ministry had spent 20 percent of the budget.
Education
Despite the fact that the authorities say 50 percent of school do not have buildings, the development budget was not even half used.
Mohammad Kabir Haqmal, the head of information and public relations, says, “The ministry has 300,000 ongoing building projects. The budget gets circulated to the next year because projects take two years or more.” Much of the money is from donors. “Most of the developmental budget is supported by donors and then inserted in developmental budget while the government doesn’t have the authority to spend it. The donors spend and hence, the level of spending is lower,” he explains.
Environment protection
On paper the Environment Protection Agency has been allocated a development budget of 1.4 million USD. But Abdul Wali Modaqeq, the assistant director of policy and international relations, claims it was allocated for building an office for the directorate, and “70 percent has been spent.”
