"Development fund is the root cause of corruption. Politics is a lucrative business for ‘qabza mafia’ and contractors to bribe people, get elected and then loot national wealth because the government gives them contracts and they become billionaire within no time. Such a wrong system promotes nothing but corruption," these are the words spoken by Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Imran Khan in an interview conducted by Hamid Mir for Geo News ahead of July 2018 general election.

"The PTI, after coming into power, will not give development funds even to its party parliamentarians. MPAs and MNAs will not have this chance of corruption in our government," Imran Khan had said.

The PTI manifesto states, "The party will empower people at the grassroots through local government. We will transform Pakistan by devolving power and decision-making to the people through an empowered local government. Local development in villages and small towns in Pakistan is controlled by MPAs and MNAs or by the bureaucracy, who do not want to cede authority and relevance."

Contrary to all these claims, in a meeting of the PTI’s parliamentary party chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan in October 2018 decided to resume the MPAs development programme in Punjab. Under that decision, MPAs of PTI and allied parties were supposed to submit proposal plans up to Rs100 million for development schemes for the current fiscal year. Rs12 billion have been reserved for this purpose but no proposal is being accepted from the MPAs of opposition parties.

It was also decided to keep the policy of the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government that suspended funds for MNAs on the ground that such funds should be utilised by local governments. However, the PTI government has now revived its policy by announcing Rs150 million to each of its MNAs and members of senate and parliamentarians of allied parties for development projects.

Senior journalist and analyst Amjad Warraich calls this policy a political blunder and a continuation of the policy of former prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo introduced for the first time in 1985. "Development projects play a vital role in the development of a country. The growth of a country gets compromised if the development is compromised. This particular approach opted by all preceding governments has destroyed our growth, development and economy. Therefore, by taking another U-turn, the PTI government would bring more damage to the economy."

Some political analysts believe that this particular U-turn is the outcome of the PTI’s policy of taking electables on-board. However, the other side of the story is that the electables who joined PTI before elections gained 4.28 million votes and 23 National Assembly seats in the July 2018 general elections. It certainly helped the PTI grab 9.28 million more votes in July 2018 general elections and form the government in centre. Imran Khan would defend his policy to take electables on-board claiming that his vision of "Naya Pakistan" attracted them to join his party.

However, expert on local government and political analyst Salman Abid believes electables have pressurised Imran Khan to take U-turn on the policy of development funds. "It’s a fact that electables have always played an important role in deciding who will hold the most important seat in the country and development funds have been used to win their support."

Abid says due to our redundant democratic system, parliamentary and constituency politics revolve around development funds. "Khan’s erstwhile ideology of not allocating such funds for parliamentarians and strengthening local governments to make the democratic system strong exists no more."

Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform has started work under the direction of the prime minister to restore and release funds for development schemes of Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) and members of the Senate. Members of Parliament would submit PC-I and PC-4 of development projects in their constituencies in the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform.

Syed Kausar Abbas, Director of Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO), talking to TNS, says "The government is supposed to release development funds to the heads of local government instead of providing it to the parliamentarians. The government is engaging parliamentarians in the same old practices by allocating them funds for development of local areas which is not their mandate."

In Punjab, the government has decided not to allocate funds to the PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz), PPPP (Pakistan Peoples’ Party Parliamentarian) and independent MPAs for the constituencies they won. Nevertheless, the Punjab government and its departments concerned would consult the PTI ticket-holders and local leaders to assess and allocate funds.

Qalandar Shah, District Chairman Bahawalnagar, talking to TNS, says allocating funds to parliamentarians instead of the representatives of local governments is unconstitutional. "The PTI government has stopped all development projects." He adds, "The policy to allocate funds for legislators is in violation of Article 140-A of the constitution" which states that "Each province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments."

Chief Minister Usman Buzdaar’s spokesperson, Dr. Shahbaz Gill, told media that MPAs won’t get cash. "All the development schemes will be executed by the concerned departments."

However, Amjad Warraich disagrees with Gill, saying, "No one can block the seepage of money. All the stakeholders, including politicians, are involved in commission right from the estimation to execution. In fact, only 20 to 30 percent of the allocated amount goes into development projects while the rest goes in pockets of different stakeholders."

The government argues that funds for development projects are being allocated under the Prime Minister’s Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

According to Kausar Abbas, a country’s progress on achievement of SDGs is contingent upon three rudiments; its fiscal discipline, prioritising of development needs according to resources, and efficient allocation and utilisation of funds. The indicators mentioned in the SDGs still need to be achieved by the government of Pakistan at all levels and the policy of allocation of funds is one of the key elements in enabling a government towards provision of quality public services to citizens.