KARACHI: Severe economic constraints, bad governance and the federal government’s reneging on its financial promises have contributed to the exacerbation of infrastructural and socio-economic conditions in Sindh, making it difficult for the Pakistan Peoples Party, in power in the province for the past six years, to keep its vote bank intact.

A senior party leader, who wished not to be named, admitted that the PPP had done little to ensure Sindh prosperity. “Our chairman has realised the fact that offering a prosperous Sindh is the only strategy left to reclaim lost ground and he is going to introduce some radical plans for the province,” he said.

Economic experts said that Sindh’s infrastructure was in bad shape and the major reason was financial and terrible management despite more than Rs700 billion had been allocated for successive annual development programmes (ADPs) since 2008 when the PPP assumed power in the province.

“Conditions in Sindh’s cities are no better. Even basic civic services such as water supply, sewerage, sanitation, and garbage collection are severely inadequate, resulting in escalated health risks,” said A.B. Shahid, a veteran economist.

He said that Karachi with a population of 20 million was bearing the brunt of poor governance despite the fact that it contributed the largest share to both federal and provincial exchequers.

“The garbage generated by Karachi every day is enough to fuel power generation for several hundred megawatts.”

Haris Gazdar of the Collective for Social Science Research explained that development spending in any province came from two main sources: federal government projects and the provincial ADP.

Historically, the major share had come from the federal budget and during the period after the Sept 11 attacks on the United States and up to around 2006-07 the federal government was flush with funds due to aid inflows and debt relief, he said.

At that time, said Mr Gazdar, the the Musharraf government expanded the federal development expenditure. From around 2007, during Musharraf rule itself, the situation began to take a downturn. By 2008 there was a full-blown economic crisis, he said.

“The economic boom had come to an end globally and in Pakistan and development spending declined as the federal government struggled to balance its books,” he said.

Although the situation stabilised through an IMF package, there was no significant recovery. In this context, the political parties agreed on the 18th Amendment and the 7th National Financial Commission (NFC) award, he said.

“The latter increased the provincial share of federal government revenues and also allowed provinces to collect more taxes through the imposition of GST on services. Sindh was the first province to push for and avail itself of this opening. But at the same time the federal government raised government salaries which had an immediate implication for provincial budgets,” said Mr Gazdar.

The provincial governments had a bigger share than before but also bigger liabilities on the current expenditure side. This meant that their ability to significantly increase their ADPs in areas of their own priority had been severely curtailed, he said.

The official figures for the ADPs in previous budgets show that a total of Rs713 billion had been allocated till 2013-14 in six budgets. The government allocated Rs90 billion in 2008-09 and had just given out Rs115 billion the last financial year.

In the last two years, the government had to revise downward its ambitious figures to modest levels because of huge shortfalls in federal transfers during those years. It allocated Rs181 billion for 2012-13 but had to be content with just Rs97.5 billion. Similarly, it set aside close to Rs200 billion for 2013-14 but then had to slash it radically to Rs115 billion.

The provincial government blamed the federal government for poor tax collection as the main reason that caused the Sindh government to slash its development expenditure downward.

“We have devised a strategy to use the available funds efficiently by spending most of them on carefully chosen priority schemes. The ADP for 2014-15 is being made realistic to ensure that all priority projects of the government are adequately funded,” said the chief minister in his budget speech.

Dr Riaz Ahmed Shaikh, head of social sciences at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST), said the budget in Sindh was by and large spent on traditional heads.

“No innovative tactics were used to get benefit from the ample funding available. It was drastically misused as well. One glaring example is the confessions of incumbent education minister about fake hiring of thousands of teachers by a predecessor,” Dr Shaikh said.

He said that several good steps were taken as well including a few schemes like the launch of Hyderabad–Mirpurkhas Road on the basis of public-private partnership but most of the roads and highways remained shabby.

Likewise, he said, many medical colleges in Sindh were upgraded to the status of universities but it had little impact on the ordinary citizen.

Mr Shahid said the basic issue that limited the outcome of the provincial ADP was the vision shown by its planners; their priorities remained confused. “Neither do these priorities reflect a tendency for, to begin with, repairing the infrastructure, nor expanding it thereafter.

“Take, for instance, the importance assigned to raising river banks to contain losses by flooding. Same is the case with primary schools; buildings of thousands of them exist but they are provided neither basic necessities (essential furniture) nor the teaching staff,” he said.

He said that setting up vocational training centres, assisting the rise of SMEs, and institutional arrangements for facilitating trading contacts between entities in villages and towns with buyers in cities, too remained a low priority. Same is the level of importance assigned to capitalising on the potential for wind and solar energy, he said.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2014