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Thursday March 28, 2024

Govt performance in social sector censured

By Azeem Samar
September 25, 2018

The opposition in the Sindh Assembly on Monday castigated the performance of the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) government, saying that people have been living without the most basic facilities despite the fact that the party’s rule in the province has entered its 11th year.

The censure from the opposition benches against the alleged poor performance of the Sindh administration came as the legislature commenced the general discussion on the newly presented provincial budget for the remaining nine months of the current financial year.

In all 16 lawmakers from the treasury and opposition benches took part in the discussion. The day’s main highlight was the speech of the Grand Democratic Alliance’s (GDA) Arif Mustafa Jatoi, whose remarks against former president and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari attracted strong protest from the treasury.  

Grand Democratic Alliance

Jatoi said the PPP’s provincial government has been issuing formal notifications for announcing support price for agricultural commodities, but these notifications cannot be implemented due to the utter disadvantage of the farmers.

The opposition lawmaker said support price for sugar cane could not be implemented at the behest of Zardari in view of his vested business interests in the province.

“If the notifications for support price cannot be implemented, the Sindh government should simply issue a notification saying that only such price of sugar cane will be implemented that is acceptable to Zardari.”

When Jatoi wondered aloud as to how the PPP government can implement its agenda regarding population control when the party’s ministers have more than one wife, it caused quite a hilarious situation in the House.

He said the provincial government in its new budget has allocated a mere Rs60 million for new development projects in the education sector, adding that it is very unfortunate because a similar sum was spent for building a garage for the helicopter of Sindh’s chief executive.

The GDA legislator said the PPP’s rule in the province is in sheer violation of the principles of merit as regards governance, while the party’s government has failed to fulfil the promises it had made a decade ago about minimum wage for labourers, jobs for the youth, upgrading of schools and housing facilities for the masses.  

Muttahida Qaumi Movement

Waseemuddin Qureshi of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) said the PPP’s rule in the province has never given priority to the resolution of the basic problems of the people of Sindh, including the provision of potable water.

Qureshi said the construction of the new Sindh Secretariat building, the new provincial assembly building, the officers club and the upgrading of the Sindh Club in Islamabad has been the priorities of the provincial government to the utter disadvantage of the masses.

He said the government is least bothered to resolve the serious problems of water shortage in Karachi, which is why the completion of the K-IV project is being constantly delayed, adding that the scheme’s first phase would not be commissioned before 2021.

The opposition lawmaker said the metropolis was supposed to get 550mgd from Dhabeji, but actually the city could not get more than 425mgd from the source of the Indus River, as the bulk water pumping system of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board has become obsolete and urgently requires an upgrade.

The MQM-P legislator said the elected representatives of the people in the local government system lack any real power or authority, as the chief minister himself heads the board constituted to carry out waste disposal in the province, adding that it does not suit the CM to head such a body whose function is related to core municipal work.  

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf

Dr Imran Ali Shah of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said he was part of a delegation of his party that recently toured District Tharparkar and he witnessed that the state of public health facilities there are in a shambles.

Shah said that the ailing people of Thar are neither being given urgent medical attention at government hospitals nor are they being provided any ambulance service so they could get treatment in any other part of the province.

He said the Sindh government in the new provincial budget has allocated a massive sum to be donated to the Thar Foundation for building a new hospital in Islamkot, but the provincial authorities should urgently spend money to upgrade its existing medical facilities in Tharparkar.

The PTI legislator said that public hospitals and other health facilities he visited during his stay in Tharparkar could not perform routine surgeries due to a lack of trained staff. He invited the chair and the treasury lawmakers to visit Tharparkar’s health facilities with him and see how they have been causing miseries to the ailing people there who could not get treatment even for common diseases.

The party’s Bilal Ghaffar said the Sindh government should broaden its tax net, lessen its recurring operational expenses and also reduce the burden of indirect taxes on the ordinary citizens.

Ghaffar said the salary component of the provincial government project has been increased by 15 per cent while the operational expenses have been increased by 17 per cent, as they have gone up to Rs102 billion compared to the previous fiscal year.

He said that all sources of income generation in the province, including agricultural income, should be uniformly taxed so that the provincial administration could generate funds from its own resources.

The PTI MPA said the Sindh government could not complete the project of an urban health centre in the Azam Basti area of Karachi despite the passage of nine years and after spending Rs52 million on the project.

He said the project’s failure speaks volumes about the sheer neglect shown by the provincial government towards the uplift of the social sector, as the project was based in the constituency of PPP-backed Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani.

Ghaffar said the waste management and water supply systems in Karachi have been in a shambles as well and should be upgraded on an urgent basis.

The PTI’s Rabia Azfar Nizami said the education sector is in a mess and demonstrates the extent of bad governance. She said that old curricula are being taught to students who are supposed to develop and lead the nation in the near future.

Rabia said parents and students are facing serious hardships at the start of each academic year, as new textbooks are not being printed and marketed in the province on time.

She said information technology is an important sector, but the province lacks an IT minister, adding that the Sindh government has been least interested in introducing e-governance in the province to facilitate the masses, as it was given a timeline of three years only to hire the services of a consultant for this project.  

Ruling party’s response

The PPP’s Abdul Bari Pitafi announced that he would enrol his daughter in a government-run school in Sindh in order to appreciate the good deeds of the provincial government.

He said that it is wrong to assume that farmers of the province do not pay any taxes on their incomes, as several types of taxes have been imposed on them.

Last week, allocating over Rs100 billion for law and order, Sindh’s chief executive had said that his government’s main focus in the current financial year is to strengthen the police force by improving infrastructure, especially police stations, for which Rs640 million has been earmarked.

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah made the announcement during his speech in the provincial assembly, where he presented the budget of the Sindh administration for the remaining nine months of the fiscal year 2018-19. The total volume of the budget from October 2018 to June 2019 stands at Rs851.887 billion.

CM Shah said his topmost priority is law and order. “We have restored peace in Karachi and the rest of Sindh. Now we have to sustain it, and we shall make the necessary investment in human resources and physical assets to achieve this objective.”

However, he added, street crime has increased in the past couple of months, but his provincial government is making all-out efforts to eliminate it effectively.

The chief executive said the total budgetary allocation for the home department during 2018-19 is Rs102.483 billion, out of which Rs2 billion has been earmarked for development.

“We are committed to introducing reforms to make the police efficient, community-friendly and effective,” he said, adding that during his government’s previous tenure, they had started capacity-building of the police, training them at army centres and recruiting over 10,000 officials on merit.

He said Rs80 million has been allocated for enhancing the capacity of the investigation branch through the purchase of GSM locators and modern investigation kits.

For purchasing bulletproof jackets, helmets and arms and ammunition, Rs750 million has been earmarked, while Rs250 million has been allocated for reshaping the police along modern lines and for taking IT initiatives.

To provide better quality of education, the sector’s non-development budget has been increased from Rs178.7 billion to Rs211 billion. For development, Rs24.4 billion has been allocated in the government’s Annual Development Programme (ADP), an increase from last year’s Rs17.1 billion.

The CM said his government has taken the initiative for the rehabilitation and expansion of 4,560 high-priority schools that have higher enrolment so that repairs can be made and missing facilities can be provided, ensuring space for over 550,000 additional students.