Sindh cabinet meets today to decide fate of 149 luxury vehicles

KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet will hold its second meeting on Monday (today) and take up as one of the items on its agenda the issue of how to utilise the luxury motor vehicles retrieved from the provincial government officials and ministers.

The issue of luxury vehicles in the use of the provincial governments has been the subject of a suo moto case being heard by the Supreme Court.

Recently, the Sindh government retrieved 149 luxury vehicles (worth over Rs1 billion) from its officials and ministers as they were beyond their official entitlement. The cabinet is supposed to take a decision to either auction them or to utilise them for any meaningful purpose like assigning them to protocol services for visiting dignitaries in the province.

In a recent hearing of the suo moto case by the Supreme Court, information came and it became public knowledge that 18 luxury vehicles were being utilised by the chief minister alone, out of which 10 were bullet-proof vehicles. The chief justice of Pakistan reportedly expressed serious annoyance at the presence of such a large number of luxury vehicles only for the CM.

In its farewell meeting on July 30, 2018, the previous caretaker Sindh cabinet adopted a set of standard operating procedures and guidelines for future utilisation of the luxury vehicles by the federal and provincial governments. The same set of SOPs was devised by the federal government in consultation with the provincial governments in pursuance of an order of the Supreme Court.

On the formal agenda issued for the second meeting of the cabinet being held today, the item pertaining to the utilisation of the luxury vehicles is at nine among a total of 10 .

The agenda item is titled “Suo Moto Case No. 11/2018: Regarding utilization of luxury vehicles such as land cruiser, Prado, Pajero, SUVs etc by the ministers/officers beyond their entitlement.” The secretary for the general administration working with its Department of Service, General Administration and Coordination Department would brief the cabinet members on the issue.

Other items on the agenda of the cabinet meeting are: exemption from the Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority’s rules for emergency procurement of medicines; the appointment of the new chief executive officer/president of Sindh Bank Ltd as the three-year tenure of the incumbent president of the bank has ended, and the finance secretary will give a briefing on this issue; the grant of exemption from Sindh Sales Tax on the services provided or rendered in relation to the donations made for the Diamer Bhasha and Mohmand dams’ funds as in view of an order of the Supreme Court (the chairman of the Sindh Revenue Board will give a briefing on this issue; the singing of an MoU between the Government of Sindh and Cantonment Board Clifton Karachi for the purchase of bulk desalinated water (the CM’s adviser on law will brief the cabinet on the issue as he headed a committee formed during the first meeting of the cabinet to pursue the issue of establishing a sea water desalination plant on the shoreline of Karachi. the committee headed by Adviser on Law Murtaza Wahab recently held talks with the vice president of the CBC and developed an initial understanding on the issue); an amendment in Section-89 of the Civil Procedure Code on which the law adviser the law secretary will give a briefing to the meeting; and appointments of judges to anti-terrorism courts of Sindh on which the home secretary will brief the meeting.