Stop the blame game

CM Murad once again attributes the financial crisis in the province to the cut in the federal revenue transfers

Any criticism on the governance or the performance of the Sindh government attracts a quick but customary reaction from the chief minister and his team of advisers holding the federal government responsible for all the shortcomings of the provincial government and its failure to deliver.

Presiding over two different meetings on Tuesday, Murad Ali Shah once again attributed the financial crisis in the province to the cut in the federal revenue transfers. The meetings reviewed a number of projects initiated under the ADP in different sectors and it emerged that in most of the cases, respective departments have failed to utilise even fifty per cent of the amount allocated to them.

The Sindh government’s ADP stood at Rs230 billion but by the end of April 2019 only Rs72.88 billion had been utilised. The situation was same in almost every other sector, be it education, health, water and sanitation, irrigation or road network. In all these sectors the government utilised much less than the funds allocated in the ADP. It is not clear if this under-utilisation of the allocated amount was due to poor performance of officials in the respective departments, or the finance department had failed to release the funds committed under the ADP.

Apparently aimed at some political point-scoring or playing to the galleries, this tradition of buck passing has for long been practised by the PPP leadership. Exactly a year back, while referring to some dispute between K-Electric and Sui Southern Gas Company, Murad Ali Shah, the CM, had blamed the PML-N-led federal government for contributing to the sufferings of the people of Sindh through electricity suspensions, water shortages and delays in transfer of Sindh’s due share in federal funds. Now the Centre is led by the PTI, but the PPP’s grievances remain the same.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2019.

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