After eight years, Pakistan People’s Party changed its veteran chief minister in Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah. An octogenarian man of all seasons known for his equanimity, persistent pliability and unflinching loyalty to the party leadership including its proxies, ultimately lost his lustre and was dethroned without creating any ripples.

His detractors as well as supporters possess an undivided opinion that Shah was merely a titular chief executive of the province with little spine to resist his string pullers. He would capitulate before every whim of his benefactors on routine decisions from postings on key positions to budgetary allocation and more critical affairs like Karachi operation.

Perceived to be an immaculate person, he allowed unimpeded proliferation of corruption and nepotism in the province to appease a bunch of his bosses. Munificent outside budget releases, thousands of spurious appointments, numerous out-of-turn promotions, contracts to favourites and cronies of party leadership and frequent postings and transfers on telephonic orders were some of his routine chores that he performed.

His elongated rule of eight years made province an abattoir of merit where jobs, transfers, postings and public sector contracts became a commodity. Thousands of jobs in education, local government and other departments were openly traded by touts of ministers and sinister bureaucrats. Although his government could not devolve powers at local level, corruption emerged as a fully devolved business and TMAs (Taluka/Town Municipal Administrations) were commonly called ATMs for local leadership and elected representatives of the party.

After Musharraf’s eight roughshod years, people in the province pinned their hopes on the PPP. However, their dreams soon turned into a nightmare when they found themselves trapped in bad governance.

After drastically altering the complexion of the federation through a landmark 18^th Constitutional Amendment and 7^th National Finance Commission Award, provinces seized considerable powers and resources to improve the lives of impoverished masses. To everyone’s chagrin, the PPP government failed to make it happen.

The new chief minister has been bequeathed with a chaotic and disarrayed province. This, however, should not come as a surprise to Murad Ali Shah, the new chief minister, who has been serving on key positions in the previous government. He had been managing pivotal portfolios of Energy (coal, gas and electricity), Finance, Irrigation, and Planning & Development.

With Finance and Planning & Development departments under his command Murad Shah remained the most influential minister and at times wielded more power than a figurehead chief executive of Sindh. Since critical decision-making about public-private partnership and public sector development remains concentrated in these two departments; justifiably, they are considered linchpin of investment and development. Hence the incumbent chief minister cannot be exonerated from his responsibility in creating the prevailing morass in the province.

State of public sector development is in complete disarray in Sindh where cities and towns are marked by rickety infrastructure, unkempt sanitation system and squalid streets. Some of the coddled districts had been pumped with staggering budgets of billions of rupees over the past years; yet, their outlook narrates the unwritten story of political and official apathy and flippancy. Larkano, the defacto ruling seat of People’s Party government gives an untidy look. Roads are marked by potholes and lanes in residential areas stink with perennially malfunctioning sanitation.

The second and the third largest cities of the province Hyderabad and Sukkur are no more salubrious. Derelict infrastructure in larger parts of these cities denote the magnitude of remiss and indifference. The provincial capital Karachi is not much different either. Barring few enclaves of elite, rest of the city is dotted with heaps of garbage and boiling manholes. Basic amenities have become a luxury for the low income groups. A protracted denial to local government has aggravated the deleterious impact on everyday life.

The Finance and the Planning & Development departments are chief culpable agencies for heaping miseries on the people of Sindh. The newly coronated chief minister had been steering these two departments in cahoots with the party oligarchy. In a bid to fawn his political masters, he had been making generous outside the budget releases for patronised projects. During his tenure, key social sector projects either remained money starved or received crumbs. Utilisation of development budget in health, education, women development, disaster management and social welfare departments has remained dismally low during these years.

A recent study of UNDP on multidimensional poverty has exposed the reality behind lofty claims of development in the province. Multidimensional poverty in rural Sindh is over 75 per cent. This shocking revelation is a testimony to the failure of governance in the province.

Quality of education and health services has particularly tumbled to rock-bottom. Billions of rupees earmarked every year for these two vital public services were callously devoured by cronies of the ruling elite and their sleazy bureaucrats. Once considered a torch bearer in the education sector, the province has plunged on national ranking to the bottom. Alif Ailan’s recent annual report 2016 corroborates this unpalatable fact.

On overall ranking of the state of the education, Sindh performed slightly better than the ravaged and restive areas of FATA and Balochistan. More shockingly Sindh stood last on the ranking against a very critical indicator of learning. Even FATA and Balochistan outperformed the province.

Health sector condition is equally deplorable. Sindh registers 72,000 TB cases every year. According to the official statistics, the province has one million patients of Hepatitis-A and two million people with Hepatitis-B. Mother and infant mortality rates in the province dwarf the national averages.

For ordinary people, democracy makes a sense only if they receive basic rights and services like security, justice, health, water and education. Unfortunately, this small hope has become a pipedream for millions.

Murad Ali Shah with his contingent of repeatedly tried and tainted old guards, claims to make the change visible in the province. One wonders if he has any magic wand to make his political bosses change their attitude and reinvigorate a slouchy bureaucracy to perform. It requires a radical shift within the party and the government itself.

How would Murad Shah insulate administrative affairs from external intrusion would be the benchmark to judge his performance in the coming months. If the business as usual persisted, there is a greater likelihood that perfunctory claim of change will remain confined to a customary rhetoric.