‘Sindh lags behind in health, education and infrastructure’

As the budget for fiscal year 2018-19 was discussed for the second consecutive day in the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday, opposition lawmakers continued to lambast the provincial government for corruption, ineffectiveness and lack of development.

The opposition MPAs of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, Pak Sarzameen Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz stated that the Pakistan Peoples Party led government did nothing for Sindh’s development or for the welfare of its people and due to this negligence the province lags behind in health, education and infrastructure development.

PSP lawmaker Sumeta Afzal said lawmakers’ funds were plundered by the provincial government and demanded that a probe be conducted into the corruption. She further claimed that community development funds were misappropriated by the government and demanded that the government should tell the people of Sindh and the assembly where the funds were used.

“The provincial government badly failed in resolving people’s issues,” she said. “Despite increasing funds for the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, cities are littered with garbage.”

MQM lawmaker Sabir Hussain Qaimkhani also criticised the provincial government for “doing nothing for the people of Sindh”, saying Sindh is the richest province in terms of resources but due to negligence and ineffectiveness of the provincial government, it has been turned into the most backward province.

He maintained that the government has presented a deficit budget, and has not mentioned how it would overcome the deficit. Non-development expenditures were increased instead of enhancing development expenditures, he said.

“Instead of spending on agriculture, education and health in the province, the perks and privileges for ministers and government officials were increased, while new records of corruption were made by the present provincial government,” he claimed.

Qaimkhani further said that the PPP government had widened the gulf between rural and urban Sindh through its discriminatory policies. Mehtab Akbar Rashidi of PML-F claimed that for the first time in the history of Sindh, a budget with such a high deficit has been presented by any government. She said that during the last nine months, not a single penny had been spent on development by nine provincial departments, which shows that they are being headed by incompetent people.

“Sindh’s farmers are in the worst condition and they are being subjected to brutal torture, baton-charging and water cannons for demanding their rights. Sindh has become a graveyard of incomplete development projects,” she said.

Rashidi lamented that while the chief minister had claimed to be establishing educational institutions of international standard, he could not even control the ‘copy culture’ during exams. Even PPP MPA Khurshid Junejo criticised the worn-out irrigation system in Sindh, saying it was on the verge of collapse and needs immediate revamping. He also called for eliminating ‘copy culture’ from Sindh, saying it started in 1969 from Engineering College Jamshoro and urged the government to pay special attention on the promotion of education in the province.

PML-N MPA Shah Hussain Sherazi said that those who wish to see development should visit Punjab where they could see progress in health and education fields. He added that Sindh’s hospitals were without doctors and medicines despite spending huge sums of money.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MPA Samar Ali Khan said the elected representatives of Sindh did not perform as per the expectations of the people and due to that the problems of citizens still exist. He said PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had given the slogan of ‘Roti, Kapra Aur Makan’ but this government has failed to provide any of those to its citizens.

MQM MPA from Hyderabad Rashid Khilji alleged that the Sindh government was discriminating against urban areas and claimed that three development schemes of his constituency were shifted somewhere else.