Why has Sindh bad governance?

Sindh hardly has a good record of governance since 1970, whether it is civilian or military governments, PPP or anti-PPP dispensation, resulting in complete politicisation of police and bureaucracy. All this has badly damaged the over all image of Sindh, and the province lags far behind other provinces, minus Balochistan.

While the PPP is in power for the last 10 years, the tenure of the incumbent Sindh government would complete its full tenure on May 31, and Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah will present his government’s last budget in the provincial assembly on Wednesday (today).

Let’s have a look at the performance of the PPP government, its positive and negatives. If one compares the 23 months of the incumbent CM with his predecessor, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, the young Shah has certainly improved the image of otherwise disappointing five rather 10 years of government.

While the PPP will go into the next elections in Sindh with the claim of improved law and order, both in rural and urban Sindh, particularly in Karachi, bringing some drastic reforms and developments as it claims, one thing which it could not improve is its own image of governance, something which even the energetic CM admits. So, it is not merely a myth but reality.

"It is true as we do not have competent people in bureaucracy and this could be said for both old and junior officers," he told this writer. “We tried but somehow could not get good people in bureaucracy,” he added.

Murad Ali Shah was lucky that when he became the CM, the Karachi operation had improved law and order situation. But his biggest challenge was how to cope with a situation where NAB, FIA and rangers were investigating some of close aides of former president and PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.

It was the time when the relationship between the Sindh government and the establishment got strained particularly after the controversial statement of Zardari, arrest of Dr Asim Hussain and strong apprehensions of some PPP men’s alleged involvement in terror financing and money laundering.

"Today, there is less pressureon me as in the last one year, I did not get complaints from other quarters regarding ministers and officials as the one we faced in 2014 and 2015," Shah added, referring to the cases and investigation into terror-financing and money-laundering allegations.

However, he did not rule out the possibility that the pressure can still come from NAB, prior to elections. He himself was called few weeks back at NAB Karachi office regarding an inquiry and was questioned for almost 90 minutes.

When he took over, he was given the task to improving the image of the government, which was facing serious allegations of corruption and bad governance. He started his tenure by changing the perception developed under his predecessor for not been very active due to his old age.

Murad Ali Shah started building the image by reaching the Sindh Secretariat at 9am daily. The purpose was to alert those with lethargic attitude in bureaucracy. While he still gets up early and starts his work at 9am, he was advised by the intelligence people to keep changing his timing.

Secondly, he followed the pattern of Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif of vulnerable development, like improving roads, transport, streetlights, flyover, underpasses etc. But, his government also brought improvement in health sector and provided support to institutions like Sindh Institute of Urology & Transplantation (SIUT) and Edhi Centre, building of Trauma Centre, and hospitals in specialised field. But, the condition of the government hospitals in Sindh is still deplorable. Not much has been done in improving infrastructure either in the field of health and basic education.

Since the PPP came to power in 2013, one thing which was in the mind of its leadership is how to win over Karachi. For this, it first brought drastic changes in the Sindh Local Government Act, reduced powers of the City government and then launched various development projects. It also decided not to include MQM in the Sindh government.

It did not face much resistance from the main stakeholder MQM, since the party itself faced multiple problems due to Karachi operation. In the last 23 months under Murad Ali Shah, many development projects had been launched, some were completed but most of them remain incomplete.

As his tenure is coming to an end, the writer met him at CM House last week to find out as to how he defended his tenure in the office and his expectation of the next Election 2018. It was both on the record and off the record conversation and the writer only produced on the record details.

"We have done a lot in the development sector, but let me admit that we could not improve our image in the media as is smartly done by the PML in Punjab," he admitted. Sindh's law and order is the best at the moment, and we have done a lot in the field of health and connected the province through quality roads, he added.

"We will win the next elections not only from rural Sindh but will also surprise many in urban Sindh," Shah claimed. Incompetence of bureaucracy created a bad image of the government. Due to incompetent people in the government, its projects were delayed and often resulted in massive corruption.

Other reasons, which the CM did not say but those who know the dynamic of Sindh politics include too much political interference from inside and outside, out-of-merit appointments and promotions and above all massive corruption. In some departments, even retired officials are working on contract for years.

Shah himself cited an example: "I am an engineer by profession, but my experience with engineers working in the government departments was very disappointing," Shah added.

His predecessor, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, who had been in the party since 1968 and perhaps the few surviving member of PPP's 1970 Assembly, remained unlucky as twice he had been removed in between. In 1989, he was replaced by Aftab Sha’aban Mirani, while in 2015, by Syed Murad Ali Shah.

It will be interesting to see whether, after the next election, the PPP retains its position, if the party leadership will repose its confidence in Murad Ali Shah or he may see another Shah replacing him.

  The writer is a senior columnist and analyst of Geo, The News and Jang.

Twitter: @MazharAbbasGEO