June 16, 2005	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 8, 1426

KARACHI, June 15: The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday resumed general discussion on the budget 2005-06 as both treasury and opposition members listened to speakers seriously without interrupting anyone. During the day-long deliberations, with Zuhr break, six members from each side expressed their views.

The first speaker was Education Minister Dr Hamida Khuhro who highlighted salient features of education policy to bring an overall improvement in the quality of education and measures to make education accessible to all.

She told the house that education was accorded top priority in the provincial budget as an increased of 38 per cent for the development of this sector had been suggested to raise the allocation from Rs660 million of the previous year to Rs1 billion.

She also highlighted a comprehensive plan chalked out by the government to improve infrastructure and quality of education, besides promoting technical education and increasing literacy rate in the province.

Dr Khuhro remarked that Finance Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad had presented an excellent budget despite all finance constraints and absence of the NFC Award.

The minister pointed out that the state of education, especially that of school education, in terms of both access and quality, continued to be poor. She maintained that this rot had not happened in a day or two, but was the outcome of years of poor governance, policy reversals and an absolute lack of accountability. All these factors had contributed to the situation where people had a little confidence in public sector education system.

She said the government had devised a clear policy vision and a reform strategy focused on the basic essentials to address the fundamental issues.

The most worrisome issue, she pointed out, was that 50 per cent of our children did not go to school and their schooling had to be ensured through all possible efforts.

Dr Khuhro spoke of a five-point strategy in this regard and said that as part of the strategy, a comprehensive mass awareness campaign would be launched in July this year through print and electronic media. Opinion leaders, social workers, parents, students and other segments of the society would be engaged in this massive enrolment drive.

Mr Jam Tamachi of PPP and Ms Kulsoom Nizamani of MMA stressed the need for joining hands to work out a strategy to utilize the allocated funds properly. They also called for avoiding criticism for the sake of opposition by both the treasury benches and opposition. They said that valid suggestions made by either side should be considered and accommodated.

Jam Tamachi said that the finance minister’s all efforts to get the NFC Award announced by the Centre had failed. He suggested that allotment of lands to

Defence Housing Authority should be linked with the NFC Award and Pir Pagara and Altaf Hussain be asked to approach Gen Musharraf to get the NFC issue resolved.

He observed that a lot of funds were being spent on Rangers, and suggested that the force should be handed over to four or five districts for one/two years with a task of bringing about an improvement in the law and order.

Mr Tamachi also criticised the working of health units and pointed out that Wapda was involved in the practice of charging inflated bills. In this context, he made mention of Wapda’s 1998 demand of Rs6 billion from the Sindh government, and recalled that the bill of the entire Punjab was far less than this.

Kulsoom Nizamani argued that if the province ran short of resources, why the government was resorting to heavy spending. She said that in Sindh, 4.4 million acres of land had been rendered barren by an increased water level. She said the royalty received against oil, gas and minerals should be utilized properly and instead of going for lining of water courses, concrete structures for canals should be raised to save water up to 30 per cent.

Naila Inam of the PML-F said that in the budget, women were ignored in the same manner witnessed last year.

S.A. Iqbal Quaderi of the MQM said the government had allocated Rs100 million in the budget for incentives to doctors, so that they could serve in rural hospitals where people were suffering due to shortage of doctors.

Mohammad Abbas Jafri of the MQM described the budget as best in given situation.

Ms Humera Alwani ridiculed the government’s claim that it was a people-friendly budget, and said it would make the poor poorer and the rich richer. She said it provided no relief at all to the poor.

She said that in order to make lands of Cholistan cultivatable, millions of rupees were being spent on the Greater Thal Canal while no measures were taken to save 1.25 million acres of land in Badin and Thatta districts which had been eroded by sea.

Hameedullah advocate of MMA, who had started his speech when Naseer Khoso, a member of the panel of chairmen, was asked to chair the session, criticized the budget-making process, and observed that elected members, even those in the standing committee on finance, had been kept away from the process.

He also castigated the government for failing to evolve a consensus of provinces on the NFC Award. The failure, he said, had deprived the province of its Rs70 billion share.

The loss had been caused while 50 per cent of Sindh’s population was in desperate need of clean water and essential health care facilities.

The MMA member flayed the increase in the allocation for law and order from Rs11 billion to Rs13 billion. Despite spending Rs11 billion, citizens could not be provided security, he said, pointing out that prominent figures like MPA Abdullah Murad, Munawwar Suhrawardi, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, Mufti Jameel, Tahir Jamal and Aslam Mujahid had been assassinated and their killers had not been arrested yet. He also referred to bomb blasts at various places, including Madinatul Ilm mosque.

The member called for formation of the Public Safety Commission, which was still due, in the province.

Mohammad Hussain of the MQM said the priorities of the government in budget-making process were aimed at improving the provincial economy and protecting interests of the common man.

The other objectives were to improve law and order, ensure funds for the schemes that could facilitate life and remove sense of deprivation, besides strengthening infrastructure for agriculture and industry.

He said that allocations for development had been increased from Rs7 billion to a record Rs24 billion. He flayed the opposition for creating a wedge between urban and rural population of Sindh by highlighting allocations of Rs29 billion for Karachi and Rs7 billion for the rest of Sindh.

Haji Pir Bakhsh Juenjo from the treasury side was on his feet when Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah called it a day at about 4.30pm.

Before the adjournment, opposition leader in the assembly Nisar Ahmad Khuhro tried to seek the speaker’s permission for moving a resolution, and demanded that the relevant rules be relaxing under rule 211. The speaker held that the rules pertaining to a budget session did not allow discussion on any other matter. He said he would not like to exercise his discretionary powers either, as was demanded by Mr Khuhro. However, he added, he was ready to put the motion before the house.

Mr Khuhro chose to withdraw his motion, which pertained to the opposition’s demand for the withdrawal of a ‘false’ case against MPA Zahid Bhurgari.

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