Opposition issues ‘charge-sheet’ against Punjab

LAHORE
Leader of Opposition PTI MPA Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed on Monday in Punjab Assembly issued a charge-sheet against the Punjab government on account of corruption, poor law and order, low prioritising of healthcare and education in the Budget 2015-16, and for failing to honour the promises of good governance in the province.
The post-budget session which follows the presentation of the Punjab Annual Budget 2015-16 last Friday began an hour late Monday with less than 40 MPAs present and only Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha from the cabinet in attendance. The discussion on Punjab Budget 2015-16 was opened by the fiery Leader of Opposition as per rules and procedure of the House.
The PTI MPA started his two-hour speech with levelling allegations at the newly-appointed Finance Minister and the Punjab government for leaving important decisions for bureaucrats and section officers to make. The entire budget was prepared by bureaucrats, whereas the elected representatives’ recommendations on behalf of the poor were ignored, he claimed. He said the economically-marginalised and the unemployed could only get relief if their concerns vis-à-vis MPAs were included in the preparation of annual budget. He said many members of the House were not aware of the financing of the budget due to heavy dependence on bureaucrats and it was shameful that Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha took charge of the Ministry two weeks before the budget was presented to the House.
The Opposition Leader lamented that parliamentary standing committees empowered to carry out their duties under the PA Rules and Procedure only met two to three times every year and gave no input on the performance of their assigned departments. He proceeded to draw the attention of the House to shortfalls in revenue collection due to lack of funds received from luxury taxes on farmhouses, cars, and agriculture lands. He said only Rs114 billion had been received in total revenue, which was only 35 percent of last year’s target. He noted that only Rs8 billion from last year’s Annual Development Budget were utilised and poor peasants were being disproportionately taxed with a 16 percent tax on transportation to markets.
Dismissing the increase in the education budget this year, the Opposition Leader pointed out that 52 percent of last year’s allocation was not utilised and only 20 percent of the environment budget was spent despite growing problems in the province. He claimed that 1.84 percent of last year’s information technology budget was spent. After pointing out lack of spending social welfare and women development departments due to poor institutional capacity, he said 11 percent of the allocation for energy was spent.
Talking about the state of education in the province, he noted that 12 million children of school going age in Punjab were out-of-school despite numerous efforts of the government. Schools in the province have missing facilities including boundary walls, water supply, and poor student to teacher ratio with budget utilisation of only 11 percent.
He challenged that the government had not constructed a single school in the province in the last year due to powerful monopoly of big private education groups and no funds had been set this year for training of teachers. He criticised the increase in the spending for CM Secretariat in this year’s budget which he claimed amounted to Rs1.3 million per day.
Launching into a tirade against the chief minister, Mehmood-ur-Rasheed questioned how the Khadim-e-Ala could be concerned with the welfare of the province’s 100 million impoverished people and clerks who benefited from only a 7.5 percent increase in their salaries when he spent a huge amount on his office. He pointed out that Jati Umra, the Raiwind residence of PM Nawaz Sharif required Rs60 million for security out of the province’s supplementary budget, whereas the up-gradation of systems at 180-H Model Town needed Rs30 million.
Turning his focus on law and order, he raised a point as to how the growing crime rate was being tackled by yearly increases in the funds of Punjab police and law enforcement agencies. In addition to being confronted with terrorism, the people of Punjab were now concerned with police brutality as witnessed in Model Town, Daska, and Rawalpindi, Mehmood-ur-Rasheed stated Monday.
It is ironic that the CM talked about reforming the ‘thana culture’ when he has been in power for eight years, Mehmood-ur-Rasheed said, and is well aware of the problems encountered by the poor in registering an FIR and attaining justice with thorough investigation and legal prosecution. Criticising the centralised approach of Shahbaz Sharif, the Leader of the Opposition mocked how the CM was performing the duties of Chief Secretary and IG Punjab making transfers and postings of SHOs every four to five months.
Talking at length about corruption in the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) City Scheme he claimed that Rs2 billion of government funds were used on its publicity. The opposition leader urged the government to increase its purchase of wheat and decrease wheat import while stopping the heavy subsidising of sugar and flour mills. The chief minister’s coveted Ashiana Housing Scheme was also criticised for poor condition of houses allotted to poor applicants. He ended his long tirade with criticism of the state of government hospitals, including Punjab Institute of Cardiology and unfair treatment of opposition MPAs requesting development funds for their constituencies due to weak local government system.