Pakistan would seek concessional loans from international development partners during the upcoming ‘donor conference’ in Geneva to build a resilient future with over $16 billion in recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction activities, having spent approximately $1.5 billion equivalent from its resources so far on flood rehabilitation.
Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Secretary Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives told journalists that the reconstruction and rehabilitation process was ongoing and that, in addition to the $1.5 billion spent so far, the spending on flood-affected areas would increase to $3 billion by the end of the current fiscal year.
More than Rs400 billion will be spent in flood-affected districts until the end of 2022-23 for infrastructure, agriculture, and other sectors, he said.
“By June 30, we are planning to spend $2.5 to $3bn in the flood-hit areas from our resources and repurposing of loans”, he adds. The compensation amount, he said, was also being distributed through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), he said.
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Mr Shah said that a total of $ 30.1bn in damages and economic losses had been caused by floods, according to estimates finalised in October through the support of international aid agencies.
The estimated needs for rehabilitation and reconstruction in a resilient way were put at least $16.3bn without including much-needed new investments beyond the affected assets to support Pakistan’s adaptation to climate change and overall resilience of the country to future climate shocks.
He said that the housing, agriculture and livestock and transport & communications sectors suffered the most during floods with their respective losses estimated at $5.6bn, $3.7bn and $3.3bn.
Giving a break-up, he said losses in Sindh stood at $20bn followed by $4bn in Balochistan and $700m each in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab and $5bn of inter-provincial infrastructure.
However, he stated that damage assessments in Sindh and Balochistan were still ongoing. In response to a question, he stated that despite healthy authorizations, use of the Public Sector Development Programme had been quite slow, at around 14 per cent by the third week of December compared to total allocations.
He stated that the Planning Division had authorized Rs257 billion for PSDP projects so far, but the appropriate agencies could only use Rs145 billion out of a PSDP budget of Rs727 billion.
This story was adapted from DAWN.
