May 05, 2008	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1429

LONDON, May 4: The Sindh Doctors Forum (SDF) of the UK has demanded fair share of resources for Sindh in the National Finance Commission Awards.

The demand was made through a resolution passed unanimously at the organisation’s meeting here on Saturday.

“The SDF does not accept the population formula because 70 per cent of the federal budget is generated by Sindh,” the resolution claimed.

The SDF also demanded that the powers of the governor should be transferred to the chief executive of the province,” and the administration of the province should be the responsibility of the chief minister as envisaged in the 1973 Constitution”.

Through another resolution, the SDF expressed apprehension over what it called the disproportionately large representation of the MQM in the Sindh cabinet compared to the Muttahida’s actual strength in the provincial assembly.

The forum viewed with especial concern the reallocation of the health portfolio to the MQM in the new cabinet because according to the SDF, under the previous government rural Sindh’s health sector had suffered greatly.

“The district hospitals are under-funded, equipment is in poor state, poorly staffed and training facilities for the medical and nursing staff non-existent,” the SDF resolution added.

The resolution said that the premier institutions like LUMHS were facing degradation purely because the present vice chancellor was wasting his time and energies in scandalising his predecessor Professor Jan Mohammad Memon.

“The present vice-chancellor widely perceived as a nominee of the MQM is instrumental in helping the Muttahida to establish another medical college in Latifabad.

This is unacceptable to SDF and this will eventually lead to the merger of the city branch of the LUMHS to this proposed medical college and thus losing 1,100 beds,” warned the resolution.

Through another resolution the SDF asked the new government to ensure that the Irsa allocated Sindh its due share of water as “Sindh’s economy predominantly relies on agriculture and water resources were vital for not only its economy but also for its flora and fauna.”

It said the environment of the province was being destroyed on an unprecedented scale especially the mangrove forest in the Indus delta which it said was supposed to be the lungs of Karachi “but unfortunately these are systematically destroyed just to reclaim land by greedy builders’ mafia”.

“Two million hectares of land has become infertile due to encroachment of sea water in the absence of fresh water,” the resolution added.

The SDF strongly supported the appointment of Dr Zulfikar Mirza as Home Minister and Dr Shoaib Suddle as Inspector general of Sindh Police.

“We sincerely hope that Dr Mirza will give his utmost support to Dr Suddle to work diligently to apprehend those criminals who have destroyed peace in the province,” the forum resolution said.

The SDF asked the new government to restore the deposed judges including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry as promised by May 12. In a resolution the SDF pleaded for the restoration of the judiciary without the curtailment of the powers of the Chief Justice.

The meeting was chaired by Dr Liaquat Abbasi (chairman of SDF) and was attended by Dr Mir Hyderally Talpur (vice chairman), Dr Anwar Zardari (vice chairman), Dr Bashir Solangi (secretary), Dr Shahab u Din Kalhoro, Dr Daulat Ram, Dr Abdul Latif Soomro, Andul Jabbar Qureshi, Ali Qureshi and Iqbal Qazi.

Later, PML-N vice-president Ghous Ali Shah and NPP president Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi joined the SDF over dinner.

While Mr Jatoi appeared to keep himself aloof from the activities of SDF, Mr Shah readily answered a number of journalists’ questions on the judicial crisis.

Mr Shah did not rule out the possibility of emergence of conflict of interest between the present 17 judges in the Supreme Court and the 10 old judges after their restoration.

He disagreed with a view that the present courts could stay passage of a resolution by parliament for the reinstatement of the deposed judges.

When asked how did he find Mr Nawaz Sharif coping with the difficulties of the coalition government and PPP’s divergent views on how to restore the judges, Mr Shah who had met the PML-N leader on his arrival in London earlier in the morning said that Nawaz was totally committed to preserving the coalition and knew the extent of damage that the democratic process would suffer if the PML-N and PPP fell out at this stage.