Staff Reporter
Peshawar
The Sub-National Governance Programme (SNG) launched its first round of the Innovation Challenge Fund (ICF) to support the governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab in improving Public Finance Management and expanding fiscal space. The Programme has invited applications from both private and public sectors for innovative ideas for selected themes on Public Financial Management and Fiscal Space that will result in more revenues, better financial management in KP and Punjab provinces. The last date April 30, 2020 is now just a few days away.
The selected themes for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa include GIS mapping of properties and services for the purpose of determining true tax potential, establishing e-payment gateway, implementing Invoice management system for restaurants ( and other services), determining tax-potential and tax-mechanism of E-commerce and business transactions under digital economy, determining true tax-potential and appropriate taxation mechanism of Telecom Sector, and Innovative ideas for disaster risk financing, planning and disbursement.
Similarly, the selected themes for Punjab include developing an end to end e-procurement solution for the provincial government, innovative techniques to enhance collection of taxes (such as use of GIS, Google Maps and Google car to increase coverage of property tax), integration of different data bases of tax-payers for holistic management of enforcement (for example data integration of businesses registered with PESSI, Labour Department, PRA, E&T etc.), automation of tax payment and license fees at different levels and expansion in the current e-payment system of the provincial government (local government taxes, fees, Abiyana – water charge, etc.), analytics system that can use PIFRA data to generate effective budget reports and capture detailed expenditures linked to SDGs and; automating information from PC-Is for estimating implications for future current budget, and innovative ideas for disaster risk financing, planning and disbursement.
Launched in 2019, the DFID-funded Sub-national Governance Programme is a four-year programme that supports the Governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, as well as local governments in selected districts, to improve the way they are governed and manage their resources for better service delivery. The programme aims to strengthen Pakistan’s public financial management and planning systems, assist the government in raising more revenue, allocate money to improve basic services for the poor and excluded and strengthen the local government system through policy reforms.
