Bilawal unhappy with Sindh cabinet’s performance

KARACHI: In an unusual move, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman has expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the ministers, advisers and special assistants associated with the party’s Sindh government, saying that he is yet to see the resolution of the province’s problems at the required pace.

These remarks were issued by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday after he visited the provincial assembly, where he held separate meetings with the lawmakers of his party and the members of the cabinet in the presence of Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.

The cabinet members briefed the PPP chief about the ongoing as well as the completed development schemes of their respective government departments and also about their issues.

Briefing the media after the visit, Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani said the PPP chairman had urged the cabinet members, including ministers, advisers and special assistants, to improve the performance of the provincial government departments assigned to them.

According to Ghani, the PPP chief had asked the members of the cabinet to remain present in their offices for the maximum period of time in order to resolve the people’s issues.

The minister said the PPP chairman was particularly interested in briefings related to projects of the provincial government’s health, public health engineering, LG and transport departments.

The PPP chief urged the cabinet members to deliver to the masses of the province in a manner that his party’s promises to the people in its election manifesto under the social protection scheme were fulfilled. He also expressed his condolences over the deaths in the recent incidents of lightning in Tharparkar, and asked the relevant authorities of the provincial government to work for the recovery of the people affected due to thunderstorm and lightning in parts of Sindh.

The PPP chairman asked the provincial government to introduce more development projects in the province under its public-private partnership system. He said that reverse-osmosis water filtration plants in Mithi and Islamkot towns should be made functional at the earliest.

He also said the Sindh government should launch a waste-to-energy project in Karachi as soon as possible. He asked the cabinet members, including ministers, advisers and special assistants, to increase their ties with the public.

Ghani told the media that the PPP chief also gave suggestions regarding the working of the information department, saying that the people of the province should be informed about the policies and projects initiated and completed for their welfare.

The minister said the PPP chairman expressed satisfaction over the performance of the provincial government in the area of energy, and also appreciated the fact that Sindh had recently become the first province of the country to secure a licence for a provincial grid company.

The PPP chief censured the federal government for not giving the province its due fiscal share as part of the federal divisible pool.

He also expressed concern that the Centre had yet to release the Rs162 billion special development package earlier announced for Karachi.

He was of the view that the federal administration was ignoring the development of Sindh only because the opposition PPP was ruling in the province.

Even the Grand Democratic Alliance chief and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan had supported the PPP’s view in this regard, as the two opposition parties of Sindh had also registered their protest against the Centre for ignoring the province’s development.

Ghani said on the occasion: “We would like to ask the two political parties that if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf [PTI] has not been fulfilling its promises it made with Sindh, then what cause has been left for them to remain part of the coalition government in the Centre.”

Responding to a question, the information minister said that at every forum they had always supported the cause of accountability as “it is our demand that accountability of everyone should be done on a uniform basis in accordance with the Constitution and law”.

He said that their protest was mainly because the National Accountability Bureau had been carrying out accountability on a selective basis, adding that only the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz were being subjected to the accountability drive.

While at the same time, said Ghani, no action was being taken to hold the leaders of the PTI and the allied political parties accountable despite the availability of evidences against them.

He claimed that PPP leaders, including Asif Ali Zardari, Faryal Talpur, Agha Siraj Khan Durrani and Khursheed Ahmed Shah, had been jailed after false cases were instituted against them, as they had been arrested before any of the allegations was proved against them.