Rabbani slams federal govt over managing Sindh uplift schemes

ISLAMABAD: Former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani took a strong exception of the act of the federal government to manage development schemes of Sindh through Islamabad, while terming it as an act of encroachment on provincial autonomy and method of rolling back the 18th Amendment.

“This decision is motivated by vested interests, as a new company in Islamabad seeks to manage these schemes and an encroachment on provincial autonomy and method of rolling back the 18th Amendment,” he said in a statement on Monday.

Rabbani said the people of Sindh and Pakistan will not allow the gradual rollback of the 18th Amendment, which this government has stated. “On this bases alone the PPPP, should not vote for the budget which is anti-labour and anti-provincial autonomy,” he advised to his party.

Rabbani said at the behest of the IMF, the federal government has had an Act passed by the Balochistan Assembly and a similar bill is pending before the KP Assembly, where like the East India Company, the federal government has assumed control of the natural resources of the provinces.

He said in this budget the resource distribution is on the bases of the NFC Award passed in 2010, the provinces are being denied their financial rights under the Constitution, 1973.

Rabbani demanded that the federal government should transfer all development projects to the Sindh.

Raza Rabbani said the federal government is usurping the provincial autonomy guaranteed to Sindh under the Constitution, 1973.