Budget proposals: Standing committee miffed by absent finance officials

The meeting was postponed till Dec 31.

KARACHI:

The Sindh Assembly standing committee on local government was forced to postpone till December 31 its meeting on the proposed financial budget for 2012 to 2013 as the finance, planning and development department secretaries did not show up or send a department representative to attend the meeting.

The committee met with its chairman, MPA Haji Munawar Abbasi, on Saturday and decided to file a complaint against the finance department secretary’s non-cooperative attitude.

Out of the 11 standing committee members only four MPAs, Imdad Pitafi, Ahmed Hussain Shah Jilani and Shama Arif Mithani, showed up. The provincial secretary for local government, Ali Ahmed Lund, and deputy secretary, Mustafa Sohag, were also there with budget proposals.

Abbasi and three other committee members were annoyed by the fact that no one from the finance or planning and development department had attended the meeting. They asked the assembly’s secretariat to write a letter to the ministers of both departments and inform them.

According to the chairman, the meeting was organised specifically because of a written request from Finance Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah. He added that the minister had advised the standing committee to formulate their budget proposals for next year.

The local government secretary said that they were still working on a development budget but had come up with a non-development proposal and other expenditures for 2012. Abbasi asked everyone to bring their proposals to the next meeting.

While discussing the issue about the local government’s vehicles, the chairman asked the local government secretary to prepare a report. He asked him to list the vehicles that could be auctioned off.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2011.