Reduction of federal transfers to Sindh unjust: Bilawal

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Sunday termed reduction of federal transfers to Sindh and other provinces under the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award as injustice to Sindh and other provinces.

Bilawal pointed out that the issue of reduction of federal transfers harmed the provincial strategies during the current financial year as the province received Rs229 billion less than its share of Rs835 billion by the PTI’s federal government.

“This is a great injustice to Sindh and other provinces,” he said in a briefing through video conference arranged by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Coordinator to Chief Minister for Social Protection Haris Gazdar, Chairman Planning and Development Waseem Ahmed and Secretary Finance Syed Hassan Naqvi.

Bilawal stressed for assigning priorities to health and agriculture sectors in the next provincial budget 2020-21 as fighting coronavirus and locust attacks shall be the top-most agenda to save human lives and avert famine and food insecurity.

The PPP chairman asked the chief minister and his team to formulate a pro-people and pro-poor budget within the meagre resources and receipts due to the COVID-19, locust attacks and the negligence of the federal government.

The PPP chairman said that Sindh has to prepare a poor-friendly budget within the available resources to cater to the needs of the people in an era or multiple crises.

Murad Ali Shah and his team apprised the PPP chairman about the additional allocations for COVID-19 response schemes, social protection and poverty reduction programmes so that repercussions of COVID-19 and the locust attacks could be mitigated.

Murad Ali Shah also informed the party chairman that the Sindh government was planning to extend subsidies to the small farmers on export quality rice seeds, fertilisers and pesticides to compensate the agriculture sector in the wake of locust attack.

Meanwhile, in a statement, Bilawal expressed concern over the deteriorating law and order situation in Balochistan after the Turbat incident.

“In these extraordinary times when the whole country is falling victim to a disastrous herd immunity policy, the least that a provincial government can do is to keep law and order under control and not make itself controversial on that front,” Bilawal said.

Bilawal said if the authorities had acted promptly and arrested the culprits of this tragedy immediately, there would have been no outrage and protests throughout the province. “Citizens only took to the streets once it was obvious that the authorities were not interested in prosecuting and bringing perpetrators of such heinous crime to justice,” said Bilawal.

The PPP chairman said that the suffering of young Bramsh is beyond imagination. “Mere words cannot heal her wounds. No child — no matter how young or old — should have to bear the loss of a mother. The least we can do is punish the culprits. If there is no justice and if her mother’s killers remain free, it will be a grave injustice to young Bramsh,” said the PPP leader.

On May 26, three robbers had stormed into a house in the Dannuk area of Turbat with the intention to carry out a robbery. A woman in the house – named Malak Naaz – was shot dead for resisting their robbery attempt, while the four-year-old girl, Bramsh, was severely injured with bullet wounds.

The brutal murder of the woman led to protests in Balochistan.