Development: Sindh asks for Rs125b but likely to get Rs95b

Adviser says there is no more money for special packages for cities.

KARACHI:

Sindh has asked for Rs125 billion to develop the province but its finance department has said it can only afford Rs95 billion for next year.

This money is needed for the Annual Development Programme (ADP) but the province simply doesn’t have the money, said Kaiser Bengali, who is the chief minister’s adviser on planning and development and known as an economist. He was speaking to the media on Thursday. The Sindh budget is expected to be announced in a week.

There was other bad news as well. Bengali confessed that the books would close this month but that the Sindh government hasn’t spent 25 billion rupees from its revised development budget of Rs77 billion. “There were some problems due to which different departments cannot use the [money],” he said, not explaining what the problems were.

There was pressure on the government from different coalition partners to announce special packages for their towns and cities. “We have announced special packages for Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Nawabshah, but everyone insists we allocate special packages for their towns,” he said. “We have no more funds to provide these kind of packages.”

The belt tightening backtracks to the flood. A total of 1,100 villages and 20 towns were hit by the water last year. Around 500 villages, which were swept away, would be built by next year, Bengali said. Sindh has started building 43 villages. It will build another 200 villages but the rest are in the hands of international donors and other countries.

To a question, he said that Sindh government had provided each flood survivor Rs20,000 in Sindh and Rs80,000 would be distributed next. The federal government is paying for this. Also, USAID is restoring the municipal services of three of the worst hit towns of the province — Khairpur Nathan Shah, Qubu Saeed Khan and Gharhi Khairo.

When asked about the Sindh High Court’s decision that the chief minister cannot have more than five advisers, none of who can be given portfolios as ministers, Bengali said, “I don’t think it is a right decision. I will have no choice but to accept it if I am fired”.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2011.