Sindh govt yet to present quarterly budget report in PA: Firdous Shamim Naqvi

Sindh Assembly opposition leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi has lamented the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government had earlier refused to offer the public accounts committee’s chairmanship to the opposition and “the government has also been keeping from presenting the quarterly report on the provincial budget in the house”.

Speaking at a press conference at Sindh Assembly building on Wednesday, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader said the first quarter of the current financial year 2020-21 had completed in September this year but the government had not presented in the house the quarterly report of the budget. “The most troublesome aspect is that in the entire past year, the Sindh government had not presented a single quarterly budget report in the house,” he said.

Naqvi said the Sindh government had yet to provide the necessary information to the house so the relevant lawmakers could know how much budgetary sum had been spent on what development projects announced by the government.

He said the lawmakers concerned wanted to know the progress made by the Sindh government in fulfilling the promises and commitments it had made in the last budget and to what extent it had spent the budgetary allocations to develop different projects contained in the budget.

He said it was the 13th year of the PPP’s government in Sindh but it was yet to rectify its system of governance in the province. The PTI leader said the PPP used to demand the public accounts committee’s chairmanship in the Centre and Punjab for the opposition but “it denied the same privilege for the opposition in the Sindh Assembly”.

The opposition leader claimed that Federal Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar regularly gave updates on progress made by the federal government about its share in the Rs1,100 billion development package for Karachi.

He said the federal government had to provide assistance for the K-IV bulk water supply project for the city, the revival of the Karachi Circular Railway, and the waste disposal work in the city to be carried out by the National Disaster Management Authority.

‘Karachi incident’

To a question, the opposition leader said the Sindh police chief had not been abducted in “the Karachi incident since he went from his residence using his own vehicle as the video footage to prove this assertion could be obtained from the surveillance cameras installed outside the IG House”.

He lamented that the sorrowful aspect of violating the sanctity of the Mazar-e-Quaid had been put on the backburner while the issue of alleged abduction of the Sindh police chief was highlighted. He claimed the Sindh government was going to remove the incumbent IG as he had taken action against the influential politicians of the province.

Tax collection

Speaking on the occasion, PTI MPA Bilal Abdul Ghaffar said the Sindh government had failed to collect tax in the province.

So far, he said, 58 per cent expenses had been made to build mega development projects in Karachi. He demanded that the Sindh government should readily establish the provincial finance commission so the budget could be spent up to the level of union councils.

He alleged that there were widespread irregularities in financial affairs of the Sindh government “showing bad intentions of the rulers in the province”.