Sindh governor, CM agree to improve ties between federal, provincial govts

KARACHI: Sindh Governor Imran Ismail and Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had a meeting on Saturday at the Governor House in which they agreed on the need for improving the working relationship between the federal and Sindh governments in order to serve the public interests in the best manner.

According to a statement issued by the Governor House, the meeting took into consideration the matter of improving working relationship between the two sides and other issues of mutual interest related to the governance in Sindh.The governor was assisted in the meeting by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Firdous Shamim Naqvi, who is also the leader of opposition in the Sindh Assembly, and PTI parliamentary leader in the house Haleem Adil Sheikh. The CM was accompanied by his adviser on information and law Barrister Murtaza Wahab, Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, and Sindh Excise, Taxation, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla.

Ismail and Shah expressed their resolve to enhance their mutual ties for the best public interests. They both agreed that there was a scope for improvement in the relations of the Centre and the Sindh government.

It is worth mentioning here that the meeting between the CM and the governor took place at a time when the Sindh Assembly has been in session to hold discussion on the upcoming provincial budget and very often the situation in the legislature gets seriously tense due to brawls between lawmakers of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the PTI.

Such scuffles often take place between the opposition and treasury lawmakers due to the use of unsavoury remarks against the top leadership of each other’s political party.

As the PPP is ruling Sindh and the PTI is at the helm of affairs in the Centre, lawmakers of both the parties often censure each other for their governments’ performance. Due to their bitter remarks, the routine proceedings of the house suffer.

Jatoi calls on Ismail: Earlier, the governor met Senior Vice-Chairman of Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi. They discussed the ongoing development projects in Sindh.

Ismail informed the GDA leader that the Sindh Infrastructure Development Company had been constituted so that the federal government could launch development projects all over the province. The governor said the health insurance card scheme of the federal government had initially been launched in five districts of Sindh and every beneficiary family that had the card was entitled to have their health expenditures of over Rs700,000 covered annually.

CM meets new Rangers DG: Earlier in the day, the CM met both the outgoing director general (DG) of the Sindh Rangers and the incoming chief of the paramilitary force of the province at the CM House. Shah eulogised the services of outgoing Sindh Rangers DG Muhammad Saeed and welcomed the incoming Rangers DG, Major General Umer Ahmed Bukhari.