‘PPP’s corruption’ dominates budget debate

Karachi
The debate on the Sindh budget for the fiscal year 2015-16 continued for the fourth consecutive day on Friday in the provincial assembly, but during most of the proceeding, opposition members kept bringing up the federal agencies’ action against corrupt bureaucrats and described it as the “beginning of the end” of the ruling party’s rule in the province.
Pakistan Muslim League-Functional MPA Nusrat Seher Abbasi in her speech paid tribute to the Pakistan Army, the National Accountability Bureau, the Federal Investigation Agency and Rangers for taking action against corrupt government officials in Sindh and making efforts to bring back the money embezzled from the province.
She said the provincial government had presented a budget of Rs739 billion for the next fiscal year, but the public needed to stay aware as to how much of this money ended up at the houses of corrupt politicians.
The opposition lawmaker said Pakistan People’s Party founder and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had stressed the need for devolving power to the masses to improve the system of governance, but in the last seven year the ruling party had done exactly opposite in the province.
In response to the female legislator’s fiery speech against the corruption and misdeeds of the PPP’s provincial government, speaker Agha Siraj Durrani quipped that she should publish a book on the issue.
Abbasi retaliated by saying that she would definitely publish a book on the PPP’s seven years of corruption in the province.
Earlier, opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmakers again turned up in the House wearing black armbands to protest against what they termed as a “discriminatory and unjust” budget that would widen the urban and rural divide in the province.
For the third consecutive sitting, they tried to table a resolution against defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif for his alleged derogatory remarks against the Mohajir community. But the speaker turned it down saying that no business other than budgetary matters could be brought before the House during the current session.
Former Sindh chief minister Liaquat Ali Khan Jatoi, now an opposition MPA, said in his speech that the provincial government had completely failed to deliver to the masses and also ruined the vital social sectors of health and education.
He said the people of province could not even acquire vaccines from government-run hospitals for diseases like hepatitis.
He said corrupt officials of the health department were always looking for ways to embezzle public money such as selling medicines, machinery and other equipment bought for government hospitals.
He said in the budget, the government had increased the allocation for the education by around 7.6 percent as compared to the one reserved for the sector in the current financial year, but despite these funds, 7,000 government schools in the province were still closed.
He said that literacy rate in the country was only 36 percent in comparison with other countries in the region like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka that were aiming for 100 percent.
He said the provincial government had reserved Rs16.5 billion alternate energy projects in only four districts, Thatta, Benazirabad, Sukkur, and Jamshoro, and ignored other districts of the province.
The former chief minister said a hefty sum of Rs22 billion had been allocated for a canal project to supply water to the Thar coal power plant, and given the amount of money involved in it, chances were that bureaucrats would be its ultimate beneficiaries.
He said the finance and energy minister in his windup speech on the budget should disclose the details of the project.
Jatoi said being a former federal water and power minister in a previous regime, he knew that electricity could not be produced from the Thar project unless coal extracted from the site was washed.
He said the Rs13 billion allocated for the provincial Irrigation department would not improve the irrigation canals in the province and 90 percent of this amount would be misappropriated in form of commissions.
He alleged, without naming anyone, that a person who neither a government official, nor a legislator had been overseeing the affairs of the irrigation department.
He said the provincial government had destroyed the agricultural sector and wheat and sugarcane growers were suffering heavily on account of the non-payment of subsidides on the procurement prices set for these essential commodities.
Abdul Haseeb, an MQM MPA, said although the finance minister Murad Ali Shah was an educated, enlightened, and moderate politician, but while preparing the budget for the next fiscal year, he had completely ignored several major cities of the province.
He said 97 development schemes for urban centres costing around Rs9.53 billion that were part of the current year’s budget had been deleted in the one for the new financial year.
He said the new budget did not contain any scheme for building roads in Karachi, Hyderabad, and Sukkur.
Haseeb said the coordinator of the chief minister’s inspection committee in a recent press conference had warned the finance, education, and health ministers to keep a check on bureaucracy in their respective departments.
The MQM lawmaker pointed out that in ongoing financial year, MQM MPAs had proposed with complete documentation around 185 development schemes for their respective constituencies while the number of such schemes had increased to 188 for coming financial year, but these projects were ignored.
Waqar Hussain Shah, also an MQM lawmaker, said there had been no progress on the proposed development schemes in his constituency, PS-128 in Karachi.
He added that the administrative jurisdiction of areas in his constituency was controversial to the extent that sometime they were declared part of the Malir district and on other occasion, included in the newly-carved out Korangi district.
Samar Ali Khan, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MPA, said “economic terrorism” had given rise to other forms of terrorism in the province.
He called for reducing non-development expenditures proposed in the new budget. He said taxes should be imposed in a rationale and logical manner as currently only 0.4 percent of revenue could be generated through the farm sector. Later, the speaker adjourned the sitting till Saturday (today).