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KARACHI, June 15: The fifth and final budget session of the current Sindh Assembly was presented on Friday afternoon, with the leader of the House Dr. Arbab Rahim sharing the bench with MQM minister Mohammad Adil Siddiqui.
The budget speech was delivered by Syed Sardar Ahmad despite opposition protests over being barred from moving a resolution on the May 12 incidents, and another resolution on press and judicial freedom.
The House was called to order at 5:20pm and fateha was offered for the people killed during the May 12 violence in Karachi. Subsequently, the leader of the opposition, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, sought permission to move the two resolutions but speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, who was in the chair, refused to take up any point of order.
The chair referred to Rule 116 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly, and stating that proceedings would remain confined to the budget speech, yielded the floor to the minister.
Members of the opposition then rose from their seats, chanting slogans against the government and displaying placards saying that without the NFC, the budget was not acceptable.
The budget speech was disrupted from 5:30pm to 6:35pm as opposition members beat their desks with copies of the budget speech.
Meanwhile, journalists staged a protest outside the main entrance to the Sindh Assembly. Calling for the implementation of the wage board award, they condemned the victimisation of journalists, the government-imposed restrictions on press freedom, and called for the arrest of the murderers of journalists Hayatullah in Waziristan and Munir Sangi in Sindh. The chief minister, speaker and the leader of the opposition were given a memorandum detailing the journalists’ demands.
CHIEF MINISTER: After the adjournment of the House, Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Rahim said that this year’s budget was “historic” since no new tax had been levied. He pointed out that this was the third budget presented by his government and the fact that it showed a surplus augured well for the future of the province.
Dr Rahim referred to various schemes that he said would improve the lot of the common man, including an extension of the palm trees project in Thatta which would help reduce palm oil imports and incentives for investors setting up projects to pulp mangos and make tomato paste and guava juice in rural areas. He added that the contract system in fisheries had been done away with and the government planned to set up colonies for fishermen as well as undertake various infrastructure development schemes.
Answering a question, Dr Rahim said that in a cabinet meeting on Friday, the KESC had given a presentation on its performance and a committee had been formed to determine whether privatisation conditions, including investment, were being fulfilled. He also said that the provincial government would allow the installation of a 50MW power generation plant but could not guarantee its purchase. OPPOSITION: Addressing a press conference after the adjournment of the House, the leader of the opposition Nisar Ahmed Khuhro termed the budget “unconstitutional and illegal” since it was presented in violation of article 160 of the Constitution, which pertains to the NFC award. He claimed that since the budget was presented without the NFC award, the province lost its Rs10 billion share annually.
Mr Khuhro questioned the government’s claims that it was a surplus budget, and said that it was actually a Rs12 billion deficit budget. As a result, he said, development schemes would suffer and the deficits would be met by receipts from the people.
Referring to the resolution on the May 12 Karachi violence, Mr Khuhro said that speaker Muzaffar Hussain Shah had barred him despite being reminded that he had allowed a resolution against the murder of former speaker Raziq Khan when the 2003-2004 budget was being presented.
He also referred to the 15 per cent raise in government employees’ salaries, saying that they would find it a relief in view of the soaring costs of kitchen items. He wondered, however, what relief had been provided to the common man who were left at the mercy of sharp price-hikes.
