KARACHI: Provincial finance minister Murad Ali Shah, in his pre-budget speech to the members of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), has blamed the federal government for the poor state of governance that has prevailed in the province since 2008.
“The federal government is not supporting the Sindh government,” Shah said while referring to the development of coal-based power projects. Through a number of drawn-out anecdotes about the anti-Sindh policies of the federal government, Shah tried to convince Karachi’s businessmen that the PML-N government was responsible for their woes.
He criticised the energy policy of the federal government that required Sindh to give its natural gas to Punjab in exchange for the imported regasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG) for logistical reasons. “We don’t want RLNG. We want to use the natural gas produced in Sindh,” he said.
He insisted that the PML-N government was up for setting up a coal plant in Gadani instead of Keti Bunder only because the former was out of Sindh.
He admitted that the Sindh government failed to spend the funds earmarked for the K-4 water supply project for Karachi. He vowed that Rs12 billion would be spent on K-4 in the next fiscal year. Sindh and federal governments will spend Rs6 billion each on the project, he added.
Saying that the annual development plan (ADP) in the outgoing year amounted to Rs162 billion, Shah vowed that the allocation for development will be higher in 2016-17.
According to a report published in The News, the Sindh government did not release even half of the promised amount under the ADP in the first 10 months of 2015-16.
Specifically, the Sindh government had promised Rs18.76 billion for local government, public health engineering and rural development. However, the provincial government released only 57%, or Rs10.61 billion, in July-April. More surprisingly, these departments could utilise only Rs6.3 billion, or 59% of the released amount in the 10-month period.
Similarly, the government set aside Rs9 billion to the works and services department, but released only Rs6.1 billion, or 68% of the promised amount. The department could use only Rs3.7 billion in July-April, The News said.
The Sindh government had promised Rs10 billion for the education department, but released only Rs3.57 billion in July-April. Sadly, the department spent only Rs1.8 billion in the 10-month period, which was 18% of the earmarked budget. The Sindh government released only 27% of the promised Rs13 billion to the health department, although it utilised only Rs1.2 billion in July-April.
