KARACHI       -   The Sindh Assembly on Tuesday gave approval to provincial government’s demands for grants on supplementary budget of Rs71.04 billion for the fiscal year 2018-19 and concluded the budget debate.

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and Opposition Leader Firdaus Shamim Naqvi addressed the session.

The chair presented 66 demands for grants before the house on which the opposition members submitted 71 cut motions however they were opposed by the chief minister who also holds the portfolio of finance minister and none of them was approved.

In his budget speech, Murad said that the federal government had fixed GDP at 6.2 percent and now they have revised it at 3.3 percent but he doubted that they would again fail to achieve it. He said that inflation rate during the PTI government has reached to 9.7 percent and dollar has reached to Rs157 and the stock market has dropped from 42,000 point to 35,000 points. “These indicators of the national economy show your [PTI govt] inefficiency to handle the national economy in the national interest,” he said.

He regretted that the federal government deleted 36 schemes of the province of Sindh from its PSDP. “Last year three chief ministers had boycotted the CCI meeting but this year the prime minister himself boycotted it,” he surprised.

The chief minister said that federal government has allocated Rs12 billion for different development schemes of Karachi, adding that provincial government has allocated Rs61 billion for different development schemes of Karachi. This is the ownership the provincial government was giving to Karachi, the chief minister said. “We would establish Red Line with the Assistance of Asian Development Bank at the cost of $561 million,” he said. Responding to an observation of leader of the opposition, Murad said that the provincial government had sent Audit report to Sindh Governor to lay it in the assembly but still it has not been laid. This correspondence is between the assembly secretariat and the Governor, he said.

He was of the view that amount recovered by NAB in plea bargain and volunteer return from other provinces was much higher than the amount recovered from Sindh but even then Sindh was being branded as most corrupt province in the country which he termed quite deplorable.

This he said on Tuesday while delivering concluding debate on the budget here on the floor of the Sindh Assembly. He said that he won’t mind if he was criticized but he would never allow criticism my mother land, Sindh. Sindh is the land of love, fraternity and peace.

The Chief Minister said that the federal government had informed Sindh government in the beginning of their tenure that Sindh would be given Rs665 bn. In June the Federal government disclosed that Sindh would be Rs632 billion. In the end of this month, the federal government again said that it would give only Rs492 billion to Sindh. “This shows a shortfall of Rs173 billion if the actual figures of Rs665 billion are taken into account,” he said and added the fed govt still owed Rs126 billion to Sindh.   He disclosed that the overall collection of the federal government was Rs4.15 trillion. “I wanted to give a raise of 25 in the salaries of the government employees but due to financial crunch could only offer Rs15 percent raise which would put an impact of Rs26 billion on the provincial exchequer. I enhanced operative expenditures budget from Rs102 billion in 2018-19 to Rs106 billion in 2019-20,” said the CM.

Talking about NICVD, NICH and JPMC, Murad said that the Supreme Court in its decision had directed  the federal government to repay the provincial government all the expenditures it had incurred on these hospitals from 2011 which according to the chief minister would come to over Rs30 billion. “This year the federal government has not allocated a single penny for these hospitals,” he said and added that his government has allocated Rs15 billion for NICVD, JPMC and NICH and the provincial government would also give a grant of Rs5.6 billion to SIUT and Rs6.5 billion to PPHI.  Murad said that he was personally monitoring the progress and pace of the on-going development projects in Karachi but due to financial crunch and shortfall in the federal transfers he could not release maximum funds to complete them but they would be completed shortly, he assured.

Speaking on the occasion, Opposition Leader said that corruption is the major issue faced by the country and this could be curbed only through transparent accountability. Those who want accountability process to be halted should understand that they would be held answerable at any cost, adding that the Auditor General of Pakistan had pointed out irregularities of billions of rupees in Sindh government’s many departments. He said that many development works in the province could not be completed on time owing to incompetence of the Pakistan People’s Party government. Speaking on water scarcity in Sindh particularly Karachi, Naqvi said that water is the basic necessity but the people of the biggest city of Pakistan deprived of it since long.

‘NOT AFRAID OF ACCOUNTABILITY’

The Pakistan People’s Party Women Wing President and MPA Faryal Talpur who attended the session on production orders said that they were not afraid of accountability as ‘we have faced these tactics in the past as well’. She was warmly welcomed by the party colleague when she was brought to the Assembly by the National Accountability Bureau authorities. “I had witnessed many difficult times with Benazir Bhutto and prisons are not new of our family as my Husband and brother were also arrested and jails in the past too. We have and we will face all the challenges,” she added.