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Thursday March 28, 2024

Opposition MPAs demand PFC to ensure development funds for districts

By Azeem Samar
June 24, 2020

The opposition legislators in the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday demanded the constitution of a provincial finance commission (PFC) at the earliest, saying that without such an arrangement the provincial government of the Pakistan Peoples Party could not be compelled to judicially pass on the fiscal resources it got from the Centre to the local governments.

They were taking part in the ongoing general discussion being held in the Sindh Assembly on the budget of the provincial government for the fiscal year 2020-21. It was the third day of the general discussion on the provincial budget in the house.

A lawmaker of the opposition’s Grand Democratic Alliance, Shaharyar Khan Mahar, alleged that the performance of the government’s health department had been exposed in the coronavirus crisis.

He said the Sindh government had failed to provide sufficient coronavirus testing facilities in small towns of the province. He said the government had failed to complete certain development schemes in the province even after the passage of 12 years.

The opposition legislator was of the viewpoint that it was unnecessary on the part of the government to raise the salaries of its employees in the new fiscal year when it had been facing problems with fulfilling salary obligations every month.

Ghazala Siyal, an MPA of the PPP, said the government had announced a special allowance for doctors in the province for their services against the coronavirus epidemic. She said the new provincial budget didn’t contain any new budget.

Waryam Faqeer, opposition legislator of the GDA, urged the Sindh government to allocate financial and other resources for fighting the locusts’ invasion to safeguard the standing crops of farmers in the province. Faqeer said the government should not wait for help from the federal government for tackling this serious issue threatening crops in the province.

PTI MPA Sidra Imran said it seemed that the ruling PPP had been following the principle of sheer favouritism in the budgetary affairs of the province. She said the development component of the new budget didn’t carry any substantial allocation.

She said the government in the outgoing financial year had been able to spend only 33 per cent of its Rs 208 billion annual development budget.

Imran said that there were 28 different departments of the Sindh government, which could not consume more than 25 per cent of their development budgets allocated for various schemes.

She said it was high time the government announced the constitution of a PFC so that the fiscal authority related to governance could further be devolved from the province to the districts for their development.

PTI lawmaker Sachanand Lakhwani said that Karachi accounted for up to 90 per cent of the revenue collection done by the Sindh government, but the city could not get more than one per cent fiscal resources in the provincial budget every year. He said the new provincial government budget could not ensure development and progress of Karachi.

Jamal Siddiqui, another MPA of the PTI, said the government had failed to impose the smart lockdown in certain localities of the city where there were higher number of people infected with the coronavirus.

He said that merely erecting a canopy by the local administration at the entrance to such risk-prone residential localities could not be perceived as the imposition of a smart lockdown by the government.

He said Rs20 billion allocated for the education department was of no purpose at all when buffaloes were found given shelter at government-run schools in the province.

He demanded that a special emergency ambulance service should be launched in the province for critically ill patients, as in the recent past horse or donkey carts were seen being used to transport patients to and from hospitals. He said that the new budget didn’t carry any package for the relief of media persons in Sindh.

Sarwat Fatima, an MPA of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, said the Sindh Building Control Authority had been involved in illegal construction of buildings in Karachi and many of the buildings later caved in.

She said the PPP’s Sindh government during its 12 years’ continuous rule in the province had completely failed to provide any mass transportation facility for the people of Karachi.

Gayan Chand Israni, an MPA of the ruling PPP, said the government’s new budget had special focus on the important sectors of health, education and agriculture related to public service.

Jawed Hanif, a lawmaker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement- Pakistan, urged the government to take steps on an urgent basis to avoid a situation of urban flooding in Karachi during the upcoming season of monsoon.