Better late than never....

Daily Times, May 4, 2006
Government will stop funding seminaries
By Irfan Ghauri

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to stop funding seminaries because of their lack of transparency in spending, sources told Daily Times on Wednesday.

Sources said the federal government had not been getting reports from provincial governments on how the funds given to them for the Madarassa Reforms Project were being spent.

“The federal government gave provincial governments Rs 495 million to distribute among registered madarasas, but utilisation reports were not provided because of which further disbursement was stopped,” sources quoted an Education Ministry document as saying.

The government has failed to implement the Rs 5.1 billion Madrasa Reforms Project over the last five years because of differences between the education, religious affairs and interior ministries over handling madarassas.

The Religious Affairs Ministry opposed the Prime Minister Secretariat’s decision to form a Madarassa Reforms Board under the chairmanship of Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi to restructure religious seminaries.

The government succumbed to pressure from madarassa representatives and handed the project to Religious Affairs Minister Ijazul Haq - replacing Ashraf Qazi. However, funding for the project comes from the Education Ministry.

A ministry official told Daily Times that provincial home departments had delayed verifying the particulars of seminaries.

Around Rs 1 billion earmarked for madarassa reforms lapsed last year because of lack of coordination between the federal and provincial governments.

A recent survey showed there were over 15,000 seminaries in the country, and their number was increasing in Balochistan and the NWFP.

The issue has already been debated in the Senate’s standing committee on education and the Education Ministry had complained that utilisation reports were not being provided.

The committee directed the ministry to get feedback about the funds disbursed.