‘We have nothing to give the people’

LG representatives of southern Sindh decry lack of development funds

HYDERABAD: The arguably inadequate budget for local bodies in the districts of southern Sindh is impeding local government representatives from meeting their obligations.

To voice their complaints in chorus, chairmen and vice-chairmen of dozens of union councils of Umerkot, Tharparkar, Badin, Tando Allahyar, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas districts gathered in Mirpurkhas on Thursday.

"Around 70 per cent of Sindh's population lives in villages but funds to provide LG services in rural Sindh are highly insufficient," said UC Chairman Muhammad Rafique Laghari. According to him, each UC received only Rs200,000 every month though their expenses were at least five times higher than the budgetary releases.

"We are sad to admit the fact that the people elected us to serve them at their doorstep. But we don't have anything to give the people," he lamented.

UC Chairman Ghulam Muhammad Mari said the development funds are not provided to the UCs and the monthly budget hardly meets the expenses of paying salaries to the staff. Mari and other UC chairmen claimed that in Punjab each UC is provided Rs3 million to Rs3.5 million for development. They demanded that in Sindh at least Rs1 million per month should be released for every UC.



Iqbal Rajput claimed that as per the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013, a UC chairman is supposed to oversee the development work in his area, which may be funded by the federal, provincial or district government. But he claimed that in contravention of the legal provision, the UC chairmen are deprived of this authority.

Other LG representatives pointed out that the area covered in a UC is often of the size of a town committee but, despite this fact, a yawning disparity existed in the financial position of the two bodies. They also identified problems like lack of office buildings for numerous UCs, especially those formed during the 2015 LG elections, and delay in issuance of National Database and Registration Authority codes, among others.

The LG representatives requested Pakistan Peoples Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to earmark a budget of Rs1 million per month for all UCs.