Possible that this assembly is dissolved before completing tenure: Sindh CM

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday said it was a possibility that the assemblies next year would not be able to complete their tenure and would be dissolved beforehand.

The Sindh CM stated this in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday as he delivered his speech to wind up the general discussion in the house on the new Sindh government’s budget for the upcoming financial year 2017-18. The Sindh Assembly also on Thursday passed the supplementary budget of the Sindh government for the passing financial year 2016-17, having volume of over Rs 105.893 billion, as cut motions of opposition MPAs to the supplementary budget were all rejected through majority vote.

A spokesman for the Sindh CM later told The News that the statement by the chief minister was related to the fiscal year of the provincial government and presentation of the provincial budget by it and had nothing to do with the political situation in the country.

The spokesman said that the Sindh CM stated so in the house in order to imply that the latest one could be the fifth and the last budget of the present Sindh government of PPP as it would not get the chance to present the next budget. Meanwhile, in his speech in the house, the CM said that his government had been constructing new roads in the city not in view of the next general elections as roads were being built in Karachi for the last 50 years. The CM said that the mayor of Karachi was not serious about his work.

While addressing the opposition benches, the CM said in his speech in the house: “You will never again get the right of doing terrorism or doing China cutting (in the city)”. The CM said that Sindh’s reliance on its own resources for revenue generation had been far better than other provinces as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been lagging behind in this regard, which had to rely up to 89 per cent on financial support of the federal government while it relied only 10 per cent on its own fiscal resources. He said that the development budget of KPK was 33 per cent while that of Punjab was 32 per cent. After KP came the number of Punjab in terms of reliance on the federal government for fiscal resources.

He said that the Sindh government had to rely up to 76 per cent on the federal government for revenue support while it generated up to 24 per cent funds from its own resources. He said that the budget of Sindh government was far better than that of any other province in any manner.