Opposition criticises govt over corruption, budget in Sindh

This year has been the worst in the history of Sindh, in terms of development and governance, says MPA

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly session on Thursday saw another protest by the opposition when a panel of the chair, who was presiding over the session in the absence of the speaker, asked the Grand Democratic Alliance MPA Nusrat Seher Abbasi to wind up her budget speech.

Abbasi, in her fiery speech, was criticising the Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) provincial budget, shouting the slogan, "aae aae NAB aae" (NAB is here).

Sindh Assembly speaker, with mutual understanding, had given 10 to 20 minutes to each MPA to speak on the budget, but Nusrat Seher Abbasi's speech exceeded 30 minutes.  She said, "Today, I will finish my speech taking as much time as PPP ministers and MPAs have taken."

Panel of the chair, Ghanwer Ali Isran said, "You have exceeded 35 minutes. We have given you more time than treasury MPAs, so please finish your speech." He had to repeat his statement as Abbasi did not listen to him.

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Responding to him, Abbasi threatened and said, "If you will not allow me [to speak], then no other MPA will speak in this house."

Amid the heated argument, the chair called the name of PPP's Munawar Wassan, who was next in line to speak on the budget. The assembly staff switched off Abbasi's microphone and Wassan started his speech, praising the chief minister for presenting a "balanced budget."

Meanwhile, Abbasi, along with opposition MPAs, continued to protest in the house and went to the speaker's podium, shouting slogans against the government.

Parliamentary minister Mukesh Chawla addressed the chair and said, "We are giving her five minutes time to apologise on her remarks against the chair. She has threatened you." Leader of the opposition Firdous Shamim Naqvi stood up on his seat and said, "Nusrat is a senior lawmaker and she must be given more time to speak on the budget." After these remarks, Abbasi apologised for her remarks against the chair and continued her speech.

Earlier, as she started her speech, Abbasi had said that the Sindh Government, in its last two tenures, had spent Rs1,500 billion, but failed to transform even a single UC or tehsil into a "modern" area.

"They have given nothing, but AIDs and Hepatitis," she said, adding that the people of Sindh were forced to drink contaminated water. "Where has this amount gone? Don't worry the parrots who were on government's payroll have confessed before NAB and all responsible for bungling Sindh's funds will be sent behind bars," she said.

"This year has been the worst in the history of Sindh when it comes to development and governance," she said, amid slogans, "abb tote bol chuke hain, aae aae NAB aae" (parrots have spoken now, NAB is here).

Praise for PPP

When it was his turn to speak, however, Labour Minister Murtaza Baloch was all praise for the PPP and termed the budget "pro-people" and balanced.  He also said that his department was striving to end child labour from the province.

"We have started with Jamshoro, aiming to make it a child-labour-free district, and our campaign will be extended to cover other districts of Sindh too. In this connection, a task force has also been setup and a call center is being established to register the complaints of labourers," he said.

"We have established 20 colleges and schools in labour colonies in Sindh, imparting free education. We want to educate the people of these colonies so that they are able to work as doctors, engineers, businessmen and scholars from these colonies," the minister added.

Tales of corruption

Arsalan Taj of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) began his speech by quoting the Supreme Court Judge Justice Gulzar Ahmed's statement and said, "Not a single penny is used for the welfare of people and corruption is rampant in Sindh." The PTI MPA said that the budget for the year 2019-20 was nothing but a flow chart. "It [money] goes to Omni group and other hidden accounts and comes back through fake accounts in Asif Zardari's pocket," he said.

Referring to serious anomalies in the accounts of the Sindh government, the PTI MPA quoted figures from the auditor general's reports of the last 10 years and said, "Irregularities of around Rs1,168 billion have been unearthed in these reports, while irregularities for only the year 2017-18 stand at Rs225 billion."

Opposing views

PPP MPA Shamim Mumtaz termed the budget exemplary. Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh lauded the government for generating 660MW of electricity from Thar coal, and added that in the next phase, 1,320MW of power would be generated, with the help of a Chinese company. He was of the view that Sindh would have generated more power if the federal government had not created any hindrance.

He suggested the federal government to use Thar coal as "base load" [on the grid] to save billions of dollars being spent on electricity generation. "Federal government spends around $15 billion to $20 billion on oil imports and would be able to save this amount if it generates power through coal," Shaikh opined.

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He added that the provincial government, with the help of World Bank, would soon launch "Sindh Solar Energy Project". It will have four components, including solar parks of around 250 MWs, and government offices and 200,000 houses will be solarised through these panels in Sindh, he said.

Shaikh said that his department also planned to start bio-gas projects to generate renewable energy.

MQM MPA Rana Ansar said that the budget was almost a copy of the previous year's budget. She said that the Sindh government has set up universities in Shikarpur and Sukkur but teachers at these universities have been protesting for salaries. About Karachi's schemes, she said that the Sindh government has allocated Rs900m for K-IV and Rs5b for S-III, which are in doldrums for last 10 years.

According to Ansar, from 2011 to 2012, many schemes such as the 100-bed hospitals in Keamari and Orangi Town and 50-bed hospital in Gulshan-e-Maymar have not been allocated funds in the budget.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2019.