CM doubts constitutional status of last NEC moot

Says he doesn’t know if the meeting took place or not and if it did, the issues of provinces were discussed or not By Azeem Samar

Karachi: The Sindh chief minister said on Wednesday that he believed the meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) in Islamabad chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif via a video link from London on May 30 was not constitutionally conducted as it did not take into account or discussed at the concerns of the provinces over their diminishing share in the federal development budget.

“We don’t know whether the meeting of NEC was held or not and if it did take place, we are unaware about whether or not it was discussed as to how much would the provinces receive and they would be able to spend it or not,” Syed Qaim Ali Shah said at a press conference at the Chief Minister’s House on Wednesday.

Flanked by ministers Syed Murad Ali Shah and Nisar Ahmed Khuhro the chief minister complained about the meagre share reserved for Sindh’s mega development schemes in the federally-funded Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the upcoming financial year 2016-17.

“It’s injustice that nobody knows the criteria under which the federal government distributes its development budget. Sindh should be informed as to why its share is less,” he said.

The chief minister regretted that that Sindh’s share in the PSDP’s total outlay of Rs800 billion was just Rs 12.2 billion.

Last year, Sindh’s share was Rs 9.5 billion when the PSDP’s outlay was Rs525 billion. Shah said last year too Sindh had protested against the federal government’s allocation for the province.

He said the decisions of federal government on development allocations were politically motivated.

He added said apart from the insufficient PSDP share, the federal government had altogether ignored the proposed major development schemes for Sindh including those in Karachi in the upcoming federal budget.

The chief minister said the federal government in the next financial year’s budget had allocated only Rs700 million for Karachi’s much-needed K-IV bulk water supply scheme – the total of which stood at Rs25 billion.

He said the federal government last year had allocated Rs .5 billion for the K-IV scheme as it matched the Sindh government’s allocation for the project.

The chief minister said the Sindh government had reserved 1,600 acres with the aim that the mega water supply scheme could be completed in two year’s time.

He said Sindh was expecting that federal government would allocate between Rs8 billion to Rs 10 billion for bulk water supply and drainage schemes for Karachi.

Shah said Sindh was yet to receive Rs70 billion of its share from the federal divisible pool despite that the current financial year 2015-16 was drawing to a close.

“Sindh’s share from National Finance Commission’s award accounts for 24.5 percent but the province is not getting it,” he added.

He said Sindh should get share from the federal divisible pool as per the criteria of population, need, and backwardness defined in the NFC Award.

He added that the Sindh government wanted to develop Karachi and resolve its issues of sanitation and cleanliness.

He said the attitude of federal government was in sheer negation of the concept of democracy showing that rulers in the Centre did not want to see the democratic set-up continuing in the country.

“But despite these injustices, we would not create an environment that would damage democracy,” he added.

He said that other provinces Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan too were unhappy with their PSDP allocations.

To a question, he said the Sindh government on its own had been able to consume 60 percent of its allocation for development schemes during the passing financial year 2015-16 despite that the Election Commission of Pakistan had stopped the provincial administration from carrying out new development works in view of the ongoing process of local government polls.

Speaking on the occasion, finance minister Murad Ali Shah said the previous PPP-led government had given the last budget of its tenure in the financial year 2012-13, which contained a PSDP of Rs350 billion of which Sindh’s share stood at Rs18 billion. “Now Sindh’s share had been diminished to Rs12.2 billion when the volume of the PSDP has increased to Rs800 billion,” he added.

The finance minister said the PSDP for the upcoming financial year contained 201 new schemes of which 11 belonged to Sindh but none of these projects had to do with the development of the province in the real sense.

He added that the opposition lawmakers of the Pakistan People’s Party in the National Assembly after the presentation of the budget would oppose the unjust budgetary moves and would try to change them through the constitutional process.

CM leaves for Dubai

Soon after addressing a press conference at the Chief Minister House against unjust budgetary allocation by the federal government,  Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah left for Dubai on Wednesday.

In Dubai, the CM is going to meet former president and co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party, Asif Ali Zardari, for a round of consultation on affairs of the provincial PPP government and other party matters. 

Shah is expected to brief Zardari on the current situation of the province, law and order matters, and other affairs of the party. The CM is also expected to brief the former president on the salient features of the upcoming provincial budget for next financial year 2016-17, expected to be presented on June 10.