CM Murad Ali Shah blames ‘collapsing economy’ for increase in street crime

Sindh’s chief minister on Thursday said the country is passing through a very critical phase, in which different challenges have emerged and the foremost of them is the revival of economy, which does not seem to be embarking on the right track by the federal government.

“This situation is rendering a large number of people working in the private sector jobless, and these unemployed youth indulge in illegal activities, particularly in street crime, drug peddling and drug addiction.”

Syed Murad Ali Shah said this while addressing the participants of the Senior Management Course led by National Institute of Management Director General Mohsin Mushtaq Chandna, who had called on him at the CM House.

Shah said the police department reported to him that unemployment had forced the youth to indulge in criminal activities, particularly street crime. “Industrial units have started retrenchment, and this is a serious situation. We have to find real solutions to the issues.”

Education

Talking about the devolution plan of Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s government, the chief executive said the plan had eroded the government’s writ, badly affected the performances of schools and health facilities, and on top of it all, created ghost employees in large numbers.

“We have worked hard to get rid of ghost employees from the education, local government and health departments, and have improved health facilities across the province.”

He said that through public-private partnership, his government had handed over a number of schools to education management organisations (EMOs). The Sindh Education Foundation has increased enrolment of students from 226,000 to 550,000, he added.

He also said that on the quality front, many milestones had been achieved. “Third-party assessment shows 10 per cent improvement in the results of maths, science and language subjects.”

The CM said that 68 schools established under the basic education programme were being managed under the EMO framework, increasing enrolment to 35,000. He added that around 500 schools under the adopt-a-school programme with an enrolment of 100,000 students had strengthened the educational outcomes.

Health

Replying to a question about health indicators, he said that from 2013 to 2018 infant mortality rate was reduced from 74 to 60 (per 1,000), and under-five mortality rate was reduced to 77 by 2018.

He also said that the necessary vaccination rate of infants under 12-13 months has increased from 29.1 per cent to 48.8 per cent, and the rate of under-five stunted children has reduced from 56.7 per cent to 45 per cent.

Federal transfers

On a query about federal revenue transfers, the chief executive said the federal government had released Rs169.23 billion to Sindh’s administration in the past four months against the due share of Rs278.4 billion. “This shows that the federal agencies have failed to achieve their revenue targets, so the provinces have to face the financial imbalance.”

He said the Sindh government had already requested the Centre to devolve the collection of sales tax on goods to improve collection targets, but the federal authorities refused. “As far as Sindh sales tax is concerned, the provincial government has set a target of Rs135 billion for 2019-20 and Inshallah we would achieve our target.”

Electricity

Talking about power generation from Thar coal, Shah said the provincial government had the honour to produce 660 megawatts of coal-based energy from indigenous coal through public-private partnership with Engro.

“Sindh is the only province that has constructed two bridges on the Indus River — Jhirk-Mula Katiar and Thatta-Sujawal — and Sindh is going to construct the third one to connect Kandhkot and Ghotki.”

He said his government will also construct the Malir Expressway through public-private partnership by the end of this year, adding that these are some success stories of the Sindh administration’s public-private partnership programme.

Transportation

The CM said the Bus Rapid Transit System’s Orange Line would be completed next year and the 26-kilometre Red Line would be launched with the assistance of the World Bank at Rs74 billion within a few months. He added that the WB was also assisting in starting the 22km Yellow Line at Rs61 billion.

Shah said his government had done commendable works in the health, infrastructure, water, education and energy sectors, adding that most of them had been completed.

The study meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah, Planning & Development Chairperson Naheed Shah, Sindh police chief Dr Syed Kaleem Imam, CM’s Principal Secretary Sajid Jamal Abro, Home Secretary Usman Chachar, Finance Secretary Hassan Naqvi, Local Government Secretary Roshan Shaikh and others.