Only air left for Sindh govt to tax, says opposition leader

Rejecting the budget for 2018-19 presented by the Sindh government, Leader of Opposition in Sindh Assembly Khawaja Izharul Hassan scoffed at the government’s claim of presenting a tax-free budget, saying that after imposing levies on 47 different sectors, there was nothing left for it to impose any new tax on.

“If the Sindh government decides to tax something else now, it will find nothing but air, since air is the only thing available to people tax-free right now,” said Hassan in the house on Monday in a long speech as the budget debate heads for closure in a few days.

According to Hassan, the people of the province, especially its urban areas were being subjected to double taxation as the provincial government had imposed taxes on all such sectors from which the federal government was already recovering taxes.

The opposition leader who belongs to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement said that the budget contained 92 per cent indirect taxes and just eight per cent direct taxes, and that people living in urban areas were being made to bear 94 per cent share of the indirect taxes imposed by the Sindh government.

He alleged that districts like Thatta, Sanghar, and those in Karachi, which were represented by opposition lawmakers, had been ruined by the Pakistan Peoples Party government out of its sheer political prejudice.

“No doubt constituencies of the opposition legislators have been ruined by the provincial government, but here the treasury lawmakers too, barring a few, failed to inform about the improvements they achieved in the conditions of their own constituencies during their speeches in the house,” he said.

“Whatever small portion of Karachi is represented by lawmakers of PPP is not in good shape, especially Lyari, which is the party’s stronghold. Its residents have been agitating against the severe shortage of water,” said Hassan.

Lashing out at Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, the opposition leader said that he was busy venturing out to roadside cafes and having photo sessions. “I want to convey it very clearly to them that they [PPP] cannot win elections from Karachi merely by having photo sessions at these roadside hotels.”

He claimed that the Sindh government had spent a total of Rs1,500 billion as development budget during its last five years in power but despite that not a single union council in the entire province can be presented a model UC having civic and infrastructure facilities.

“Despite spending Rs1,500 billion development budget, road infrastructure, schools, hospitals, dispensaries, civic facilities and graveyards in the entire province have been in a shambles,” Hassan said.

‘Secret deal’

He alleged that the Sindh government had secretly reached a compromise with the federal government on the issues of National Finance Commission Award and on the results of the 2017 census. His party, the MQM, has repeatedly termed the census results controversial.

This was the third consecutive budget the Sindh government had presented without a new NFC Award, which should have been announced by the federal government three years ago, he pointed out.

“During these three years, PPP’s Sindh government has not lodged a single serious protest or done any sort of agitation for non-provision of new NFC Award for the provinces,” he said. “Not for a single time, have they threatened to come on the roads of Islamabad to protest against the delay in the announcement of the NFC Award. It seems their protest was only confined to the drawing rooms.”

Speaking about the census results, the opposition leader said that some 15 million people had not been counted in Karachi’s population, but the rulers of Sindh remain unperturbed. “Their (the provincial government’s) reaction would be a lot different and ferocious if in case the population of any other city like Larkana or Khairpur was counted less,” Hassan said.

He lamented that provincial budget didn’t contain any new labour policy or incentive package for labourers as well as no relief for traders and industrialists, who contribute a lot towards revenue generation.

He claimed that the MQM would come to power in the upcoming polls and “would undo every anti-people aspect” of the budget. “We will revise this budget to make it friendly for peasants, labourers, and industrialists alike.”

Commenting on the PPP’s slogan of food, clothing and shelter, Hassan said that the budget had no such feature at all. “When I analyse this budget, I see no such good feature. I see only ominous features like hunger, unemployment and graveyards.”

Missing facilities

Hassan further criticised the PPP government saying it had made no progress in the past five years towards the construction of the long-awaited Karachi Circular Railway revival project and had failed to vacate even one kilometre of KCR land being encroached upon.

“It seems that during the last five years no headway has been made in the construction of the KCR, except the formation of different committees by the government,” he said.

Speaking about another mega project, the MQM leader said that the government was far from completing the K-IV Greater Karachi Water Supply Scheme project as residents of different parts of the city had been facing severe shortage of water in this summer season.

Apart from the K-IV scheme, the Sindh government also failed to construct another project to supply additional 65 million gallons per day of water to Karachi residents as per its repeated commitments and promises, he claimed.

Defending his party, Hassan said the MQM had been unduly criticised for providing jobs to its supporters and workers in the local government agencies of Karachi when the ruling PPP also took credit for providing hundreds of thousands of jobs to the people in Sindh. “We are always subjected to very harsh criticism for giving these 4,000 jobs but it seems that this criticism stemmed from the fact we provided these jobs free of charge and didn’t sell them out like other parties,” he said.

He said that once the MQM was back in power, it would again provide jobs to people on similar lines in municipal agencies of the city like KMC, DMCs and KWSB. The opposition leader lamented that the provincial budget had no new scheme or new announcement for the important transport sector while the provincial government also failed to materialise a mass transit project for Karachi. “In fact, I coin here a new term. We all know about the phenomenon of ghost employees. Here, we have the new phenomenon of ghost buses,” he said. “These are the bus service schemes, which were announced by the provincial government in its successive budgets but they existed in budget books only and buses cannot be seen anywhere on the roads of Karachi.”

‘PPP brought development’

Earlier in his speech in the house, former Sindh CM Qaim Ali Shah said during its last 10 years in government, the PPP had provided total 300,000 government jobs to the people of the province.

PPP had assumed power in 2008 during very difficult times as unemployment among educated youth was rampant while the economy of the province was in a shambles, he said, adding his party had contributed a lot towards development and construction of infrastructure in Sindh.

Law and Prisons Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar said that those who had earlier advocated the cause of the division of Sindh to create a new province had themselves got disunited. “Those who are used to talking about the province as exterior and interior Sindh should know better that Sindh is an undivided entity,” he said.

Lanjar said the PPP’s provincial government did not release any criminal from the prisons on parole while the MQM during its previous governments had gotten a number of terrorist out from prison through parole. The budget debate will continue in the house today.