Public Money: Management & Investment Issues

The aim of this column is not to write a research article. It is better to leave research for academic personals and public policy-making institutions. The common man is one of the stakeholders and his understanding of public money and its management is as important as it is for the policymakers.

Public funds play an important role in the development of a country and for this reason, it should be given more attention by the government and its policymakers. In our country, we are already in an encounter with the phenomenon of mismanagement of public funds. This is an acute problem being affecting the state budget and its performance directly.

Public funds are a growing group of instruments in the hands of the public sector, which should be used only to achieve the goals and objectives relevant to the concerned sector. Through these funds, the public sector makes possible the existence and continuation of its activity. More specifically, public funds are all monetary assets, which are collected, received, maintained, distributed and spent by public sector entities that consist of revenues, expenditures, loans, investments and grants for public sector entities.

The core reason of this narrative is the identification of problems related to the investment of public funds. Seed capital has been invested in the shape of Term Deposit Receipt (TDR) with scheduled Banks having AA+ rating of State Bank. In fact, the process of investment of seed capital is regulated in accordance with the instructions issued by the Finance Department, Govt. of Punjab from time to time. As per prevailing practices in the light of instructions of the Punjab Government, the public sector seeks the highest profit rate from commercial banks and therein ask the Bank of Punjab to match the highest rate.

It may nevertheless be seen that the condition to match the highest rate of markup/profit tends to discourage other banks to participate in the competition as most of the banks consider it a futile exercise and are thus reluctant to participate in the process of offering rate of markups, consequently Public Sector suffers huge financial implications in its earnings and probable losses.

Furthermore, this kind of problem has always been facing by public institutions constantly for long. This defect in policy caused dire consequences in the financial budget of the concerned public sector, which foster much labor in earning more profits for the achievement of their goals and objectives in order to deliver significantly in the development of nation and country.

Another fundamental hiccup is the incomplete, one-sided and non-uniform policy for the investment of public funds. It is a known fact that these funds are utilized in a way; effectively and efficiently to avoid its abuse and misuse as much as possible. This writing has emanated the gap that do exist in the management of public funds, resulting in economic losses with considerable values.

In the light of prosperity, the best public interest and for the scope of fair competition, the Finance Department Govt. of Punjab may review its policy in order to waive off the condition to match the highest rate of markup by the Bank of Punjab only and let the other scheduled banks to offer the best rate of profit in open bidding to provide the conjoint opportunities to all. A concerned quarter should review the policy and instructions regarding the investment of public money which will give a boost and energy in the transformation of public sector.

Managing public money effectively can help all areas of government activities including effective resource allocation, decision and policymaking, the fight against fraud and corruption, better services and outcomes to improve the lives and well-being of people. Good governance and strong Public Financial Management (PFM) can underpin all facets of public sector activities around the world and also in Pakistan. In the end, I would like to quote Benjamin Franklin with a little bit of alteration “Beware of little loss; a small leak will sink a great ship.”

The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Newspaper. The writer can be reached at rehmanaseef@yahoo.com