NAB failed, new agency under consideration to control corruption: Sindh CM

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that it is inappropriate for the Sindh governor to appear in the media and give his opinion on the bill recently passed by the Sindh Assembly to render ineffective the National Accountability Ordinance-1999 (NAO) in the province, saying that everyone should look towards the constitutional role he has to perform.

“The governor of the province has no role in it. He has only two options: either he has to sign the law, which has gone to him or he has 10 days to return it with his views. It (the law) will again be presented in the assembly as the assembly will then consider it,” said the CM while addressing the Sindh Post-budget Conference 2017-18, organised by the Jang Media Group here on Wednesday.

He said NAB had failed, a new agency was under consideration to control corruption in the province. Murad said no one was doing more harassment than NAB in the name of plea bargain.

The CM was asked by a member of the audience to comment on the move of the Sindh government to strike down the NAO in the province all of a sudden through a bill of the provincial assembly and whether such steps of his govt would increase or otherwise public confidence in spending of the provincial budget. 

He said it had been stated that the Sindh government had been enacting such laws as perhaps it had been in the mood to breakaway from the Federation of Pakistan. He said saying so was in much bad taste.

“I am using just my constitutional right as in case I am wrong, then it (the law) will definitely go to courts as then it will be entirely up to the court to take any decision. I am stating so that this law will go the court as governor of the province has said so, which is so much unfortunate,” said the CM. He said the NAO was a draconian law as the Supreme Court had also once remarked that the NAB had died the other day. “The Sindh government has to face criticism as it wants to get this (the NAB law) rectified,” he said. 

He said that presentation of the bill in the Sindh Assembly to nullify the application of NAO in the province had been on the cards for many years as the move had not been taken all of a sudden. “The alternative accountability law of the province is almost ready and I don’t want that it should be brought forward in a hurry”.

“We will be empowering the (Sindh) Assembly rather than empowering the provincial govt through the new law, which will be brought forward by us,” he said. The CM said that a committee of the Sindh Assembly with equal representation of both the opposition and treasury benches would appoint the chairman of the proposed accountability commission or agency in the province. “A chairman will not be brought forward who himself is facing charges,” he said.

He said the provincial assemblies had become competent to strike down the NAO after 2010 once the 18th Constitutional Amendment had abolished the VIth Schedule of the Constitution, which had provided indemnity to the NAB law. 

He said the provincial government’s employees had been harassed by the National Accountability Bureau. “Some of the people are even sitting here who suffered because of the NAB,” he said.

He said the NAB had picked up two officials of the Sindh Irrigation Department who were related to the project of lining of Rohri canal. Both the engineers had been imprisoned in Sukkur jail for three months. The two engineers of the Irrigation Department had been imprisoned during summer on the basis of an application, which bore no signature and didn’t even mention name of any project.

“Two judges of the high court heard their bail application as they said in their decision that action of NAB was mala fide as they had no proof and neither they were able to bring any proof,” he said. 

He said that director-general of NAB Sindh had been residing in the bungalow of the same Irrigation Department and he (the NAB DG) had harassed the provincial department to get approved a development scheme of Rs45 million to get his bungalow repaired. “The NAB has been hounding us”.

“If something wrong is being done by the provincial government, then it is the authority of the provincial government to get it rectified. Tomorrow, someone would say that the International Court of Justice would work here as neither the Supreme Court nor any other court will be allowed to work here. Whosoever is supposed to do work should do the work as we believe in this notion,” he said.

“We are also prone to committing mistakes but it is not the case that the rest of the institutions are working very efficiently. I don’t think that our institutions have been in a much worse state than the other institutions in the country,” he said.

“Nobody has said anything when the PM had said that NAB should mend its ways. I have done whatever right has been given to me by the assembly. I will not forego the rights given to me by the Constitution,” he said.

He said that measures to combat corruption had been first mentioned in the Constitution of 1956 as at that time the subject of anti-corruption had been on the concurrent list of legislation. In the Constitution of 1973, the subject of anti-corruption had been removed from the concurrent list and moved to the residual list meaning thereby that the provinces had been empowered to do legislation on the subject, said the CM.

The subject of anti-corruption had remained a provincial subject till 1997 when the Ehtesab Act was passed. Later, in 1999 the NAO was promulgated by the regime of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf as he had usurped and exercised the powers of the National and provincial assemblies to do legislation under emergency of proclamation order.

BUDGET 2017-18: Earlier, the CM, discussing the Sindh government’s budget 2017-18, said that its volume was of over Rs one trillion, which is unprecedented in the history of the provincial govt. “The provincial government has two sources for making budget - the federal transfer from divisible pool and the provincial resources,” he said.

The federal government at the beginning of 2016-17 had committed to provide Rs593 billion, then curtailed Rs13 billion and later committed to provide Rs480 billion. By the end of the financial year, 2016-17 they provided only Rs440 billion, which showed a shortfall of Rs54 billion. The provincial government has achieved all its targets. The Sindh Revenue Board recovered Rs78 billion and for the current financial year it has been given a target of Rs100 billion.

He said that this year the provincial development budget was Rs344 billion, which included Rs244 billion provincial ADP and Rs30 billion District ADP. “I have given a special focus to the development of the province and personally monitoring uplift works,” he said and added that the recent heavy rains developed some cracks in the roads constructed in the city but the faults were being fixed again by the same contractor for which no new funds would be paid. “Believe me we have selected good contractors and are ensuring quality work and that is why no accumulation of rain water was reported on the Shahrah-e-Faisal because storm water drains were constructed on both sides,” he said.

Talking about the education sector, he said that it has been given top priority by giving Rs202.2 billion budget with 24 per cent growth. The health sector which is most important has also been given Rs100.32 billion budget, which is 25.2 percent more budget than the last year. “We have also given special grants to leading hospitals like JPMC for caner wards, NICVD, SUIT and others,” he said.

Law & order has been allocated Rs90.586 billion, which is 10 percent higher than the budget of the last year. “We give a substantial amount as internal security allowance and compensation in cases of martyrdom to Rangers also,” he said. Earlier, Jang Group's Sarmad Ali welcomed the Sindh CM.