No one can cause fissures in PPP, Murad tells PA

Sindh’s chief minister said on Wednesday that no one is capable of or can even think of causing fissures in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), as the entire PPP is under the leadership of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Asif Ali Zardari.

CM Murad Ali Shah was addressing the provincial assembly as he wrapped up the general discussion on PPP MPA Heer Ismail Soho’s adjournment motion about the unjust water distribution by the Indus River System Authority.

Shah said the PPP will soon be in a position to form government in the entire country, as “all these temporary things will be gone”. “The future is the PPP; the future is Bilawal; others will be history.”

He said the PPP has been securing majority of the votes in Sindh in every elections held in the country since 1970. “Maybe the people voted for us in 2008 due to Benazir Bhutto’s martyrdom, but they had enough time to think before voting for us in 2013 and 2018.”

He recalled that in the 2018 general elections the PPP had secured higher number of votes and seats in the province than ever before. He said the Sindh government will continue to serve the people under the guidance of the PPP leadership.

Shah said that being the chief executive of the province, he is answerable to its people, the voters of his constituency, the leadership of his party and to the House that elected him CM, but not to anyone else.

He said his party will go to any forum to secure the rights of Sindh’s people, adding that one such unfulfilled right is the provision of water to the province in accordance with the 1991 water accord.

The chief executive said they have been facing some serious problems due to the federal government. For example, he explained, the Constitution’s Article 158 regarding the use of natural gas and other mineral resources is not being implemented.

He claimed that tax collection by the Centre during the past six months has been dismal; more precisely, it has been pathetic. He said that this is probably the first time that during this period, the federal government has been able to collect fewer taxes.

Shah said that instead of promoting economic ideas based on chickens, egg farming and sewing machines, the Centre should take advantage of the true potential of the country. He said the fate of the wind power projects installed in the province have been in the doldrums due to the non-cooperation and indifferent attitude of the federal authorities.

The CM said the Sindh government will continue to oppose unjust energy policies. He said the provincial administration alone has undertaken the project to extract coal from Thar and generate electricity from it.

He said that besides laying a transmission line for evacuating coal-based electricity, the Sindh government has undertaken all of the other aspects of the project as well. Shah said he had recently held a very productive discussion with the federal ministers for power, petroleum and education as well as the prime minister’s special assistant on energy.

“We will fully cooperate with them wherever it is required. They are very good people, who came here to meet us, but in between some bad people also come here and make matters worse for us.”

He said that Sindh’s people know very well what method has to be adopted to secure their rights, and for this cause they have chosen the PPP and its Chairman Bilawal.

‘No surplus water’

Speaking on the adjournment motion, the CM said that new dams to be constructed in the country will require surplus water, but there is none anywhere. He said that whatever quantity of water is stored in the new dams will be done at the cost of Sindh, which is already facing a severe shortage.

Shah said that around 10 to 12 million acre feet (MAF) of water will be required to fill the new dams in the country, but doing so would mean that it would be done at the cost of the water being provided to Sindh. “Downstream Kotri we require minimum 10 MAF, but this year only 2 MAF was released. Even this 2 MAF will not be available to us if new dams are constructed.”