Sindh’s finances

WHILE presenting the budget for 2005-06, Sindh’s senior finance minister identified some of the problems peculiar to the province posing a challenge for its financial managers. He spoke of the environmental mess which Sindh faced because of the pollution of the River Indus. There is the heavy influx of migrants from the other provinces putting pressure on the economy and civic services in the province. Then there is the geographical dispersal of small squatter colonies all over the province which enhance the expenses and efforts in providing economic and social services to the people. There is another major problem which Sindh and the other provinces face. That is the inelasticity in their tax resources and the excessive dependence on the federal government for funds. Since under the formula for the distribution of the revenues raised in the province, Islamabad denies Sindh its due share, the provincial government has resisted the new NFC formula.

Against this backdrop, the Sindh finance minister has managed to draw up a budget of Rs. 147.6 billion for 2005-06 — of which Rs. 118.9 billion is for revenue expenditure and Rs. 28.7 billion is for the development plan. The budget document shows a deficit of Rs. 5.9 billion on the revenue side while the development side is neatly balanced. It has not been said where the sum of Rs. 24 billion for the development plan will come from, when only Rs. 4.7 billion is to be provided by foreign donors. Apparently, a lot of tinkering has been done with the numbers and we will have to wait to see how the provincial government will manage the development projects during the coming year.

The revenue expenditure has registered a rise of 12 per cent over the outgoing year’s budget. A big chunk of the revenue budget will go towards the administration (Rs. 19.8 billion), law and order (Rs. 13.5 billion), and debt servicing (Rs. 11.5 billion) which cumulatively amount to 37 per cent of the total revenue allocations. This leaves very little for human resource development. Thus education is to receive Rs. 4.0 billion in 2005-06 — no doubt a jump from the Rs. 2.6 billion allocated for this head in the outgoing year, but a small fraction of the total revenue budget (2.4 per cent). Similarly, health is to receive Rs. 3.9 billion as against Rs. 3.2 billion in 2004-05. This underlines the sorry state of affairs in Sindh that the province has to spend most of its resources on governance and law and order and yet the results are not very satisfactory.

The development plan allocates the highest amount to road building (Rs. 3.5 billion in 2005-06) that should help in creating a better communication network in the province. Strangely, the next priority in the development plan is for special projects which include a drinking water scheme in Thar, the Gorakh hill station and improvement of the shrine of Shahbaz Qalander. Only the first one will be accepted without any questions, especially when education will get only Rs. 1.0 billion and health Rs. 0.8 billion, which indeed are a pittance. The main challenge is for the government to utilize the available funds in such a way that corruption and wastage do not squeeze the various projects of the money allocated to them. This is increasingly becoming the problem that policy-makers and planners are expected to tackle.

Mukhtaran Mai’s plight

JUDGING by Friday’s events, Mukhtaran Mai’s nightmare seems to have no end. First, the Lahore High Court declined the Punjab government’s request seeking an extension of the detention of 13 men accused of raping her in June 2002. Before she could register her shock over the fact that the accused had once again been released — though on surety bonds — she learnt that the interior ministry had her name put on the Exit Control List. Mukhtaran Mai was due on Saturday to travel to London on an invitation extended to her by Amnesty International. It seems that the government fears that with her visit the country’s image would be tarnished, an old complex that each government suffers from. This bizarre move highlights once again how rape victims are continuously victimized in Pakistan. That the victimization should be at the behest of a government, and that too one which has been supportive of Mukhtaran, is baffling. Mukhtaran claims that she has been virtually living under house arrest during the past 10 days and has been disallowed from going to Lahore to meet her lawyer to discuss details of an appeal she has filed with the Supreme Court. This is the latest in twists in a number of moves, including legal ones, that she has had to contend with since her ordeal began. However, her courageous spirit and determination remain unimpaired as she has vowed to carry on with her struggle for justice.

The government is wrong in thinking that it is protecting Mukhtaran by restricting her movements. By putting her name on the ECL, it has evoked the very same national and international reactions it was hoping to avoid. The authorities must realize that it cannot wish Mukhtaran’s tragic plight away. Her case has become the litmus test to determine whether the government is genuinely committed to upholding and protecting women’s rights. That it needs to be reminded again and again of this responsibility is disappointing but it can still make amends. The interior ministry should immediately remove her name from the ECL and allow her free movement, albeit under tight security.

Victims of apathy

ONE more life was claimed on Friday by the infamous ammunition scrap industry which continues to operate illegally from a congested Lahore neighbourhood. The latest blast at a Misri Shah godown took place when labourers were unloading scrap ammunition from a truck. Besides killing an unidentified wage earner, the explosion left two other labourers seriously wounded. Last month a similar blast in the same locality had claimed two lives, again unidentified workers, and injured many others. But the case was reportedly hushed up by the godown contractor and the area police. The truth came to light two days later when the city police chief was forced to order an inquiry into the incident after an ASP let the cat out of the bag. Though the inquiry has been underway since then, no arrests have been made, ostensibly because the accused in the case are well-connected people.

The latest incidents are by no means uncommon. Blasts at Misri Shah scrap godowns have been a constant threat to residents for many years. Because the locality in northern Lahore is home largely to low-income groups, among them thousands of rural migrant workers, little attention has been paid to curbing the dangerous trade in the thickly populated area. There was hope that the city district government would take action to eradicate the menace of hazardous factories and warehouses operating in residential areas, Misri Shah and elsewhere, but the CDGL instead chose to busy itself with the fad of ‘beautifying’ more affluent localities. Illegal factories and warehouses spread across northern Lahore, home to no less than three million people, and where civic services and amenities exist but in name, have proliferated over the years. These need to be dismantled without any further delay to arrest the threat to public safety.