KARACHI: Legislators trade barbs over Sindh budget
By Habib Khan Ghori
KARACHI, June 21: The Sindh Assembly resumed the general discussion on the budget 2007-08 when it reassembled on Thursday. Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah had a smooth sailing as members from both the treasury and opposition benches mostly concentrated on the house business through the 19 speeches made during the day’s proceedings.
The proceedings began at 10.55am and soon after the question hour, the speaker invited members to express their views on the budget. He did not allow any member to raise a point of order.
From the treasury side, Ferheena Ambreen, Naila Inam, Syed Zainul Abideen, Jalal Shah Jamote, Abdul Sattar Ansari, Zulfiqar Ali Kamario, Heer Soho, Ramesh Kumar, Begum Gulzar Unnar and Abdul Razzaq Rahimu appreciated the considerably high allocations for development under the Annual Development Programme. They noted that over the past five years, the government had increased the allocations from Rs7 billion to Rs50 billion.
They were full of praise for General Pervez Musharraf, arguing that for the first time in the history of Pakistan the assemblies were allowed to complete their tenure. They advised the opposition benches not to criticise the government or the budget for the sake of criticism, and instead come out with some valid practicable proposals for public welfare if they had any.
Ramesh Kumar, however, asked why the funds allocated under different head remained unutilised. He also called for amending the Blasphemy Law to ensure that an alleged offender was not prosecuted under this law until it was established through a judicial probe that he had committed the offence.
From the opposition side, Nawab Wasan, Shamim Ara, Javed Shah, Hafiz Naeem, Jam Mehtab, Shama Mithani, Mujaddid Asran, Sassui Palejo and Sharfunnisa Leghari took part in the debate.
They termed the budget ‘a jugglery of words and figures’, claiming that the government had been repeating the same commitments, estimates and tall claims every time it presented a budget during its tenure. They said that an unstable economy and constantly deteriorating quality of the common man’s life were reflective of the government’s failure to deliver. They said the government should concede its failure and step down as it had lost people’s confidence and, thus, the right to rule.
They were of the view that the masses had pinned high hopes on this year’s budget but it had brought only frustration and disappointment to them.
Attributing the province’s poor financial health to its deprivation of a genuine NFC Award, they said that Sindh was suffering a loss of billions of rupees annually due to this very reason.
Ms Mithani said that the province was experiencing the energy crisis because not a single power project had been executed during the entire tenure of this government. She recalled that the PPP government had, under an agreement, allowed IPPs to establish their power plants to meet the future electricity requirements of Sindh and other provinces but the successive governments did not implement the agreement. Had the IPPs been allowed to help meet the energy requirements, people would have had electricity in abundance and also at much cheaper rates, she claimed.
Shamim Ara and Sassui Palejo spoke on fresh electoral lists and termed the ‘flawed’ voters lists put on display by the government ‘pre-poll rigging’, alleging that over five million eligible voters were deliberately deprived of their right to vote.
The discussion continued till 5:45pm when the chair called it a day. The house will resume the debate on the budget at 9am on Friday.
