KARACHI: Senior Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah has given assurance to the house that the provincial finance commission would be formed within a week after the elections of mayor and chairmen of the local bodies.

He also vowed that committees comprising members from the opposition and treasury benches along with other stakeholders would be constituted within two months to rationalise the rate of income tax on agriculture and property tax.

In response to the slogan of “Adha Tumahara, Adha Humara” raised by leader of opposition Khwaja Izharul Hassan, the finance minister said: “When we use the word us, it means all of us. This land belongs to all of us and we all have to live together in harmony.”

The minister was exercising his right to reply to the points and issues raised by the speakers while participating in the general discussion on the budget 2016-17.

Mr Shah said the people might have left gold behind in India to get settled in Sindh where people welcomed them with open arms. “You must have heard Bhale Kare Aya. But you also need to open the doors of your mind,” he advised.

Referring to budget speeches, he said the lawmakers who did not read the budget documents termed it a puzzle of figures. He said one set of the speakers called it a budget good, another set of lawmakers appreciated it but had reservation about transparent use of funds while the third set of the speakers did not find any good thing in the budget documents at all. He said corruption was not a new issue, as it was also mentioned by Quaid-i-Azam in his speech. He said NAB’s intervention was the main hurdle in the development work.

Of the Rs162 billion annual development programme of the current year, Rs148 billion had been released, he said, adding that Rs133 billion of the amount had been utilised and the government would also demonstrate by utilising Rs225 billion ADP.

The finance minister said the Sindh government had not written of a single rupee. The grants of various departments including local bodies had been increased. For universities, he said, Rs2 billion and Rs5 billion were allocated as development and non-development expenditure.

He said it appeared Rs91 billion was still outstanding from Sindh’s share on the federation. He said the K-IV water project would be completed within two years even if the federation did no pay its full share.

He said Rs 11 billion budget for CM House was allocated because a helicopter had to be purchased as the existing one had become obsolete.After the speech of the finance minister, the speaker called it a day at 7.25pm to meet on Saturday noon.

Earlier, when the house was called to order by Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani at 3.30pm on Friday, leader of opposition Khwaja Izharul Hassan said the flyover project at Shaheen Complex was part of the 2013 budget also with an estimated cost of Rs513 billion but its cost increased to Rs800 million.

Referring to the prolonged outages in Sindh, he asked the ruling party to stage protest in the National Assembly against power loadshedding and asked leader of opposition Khurshid Shah to lead the protest in the national assembly.

He said that the house be informed about the fate of inquiry that PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had ordered on spending public money on the public meeting in Larkana and suggested that he should ordered inquiry into corruption in Sindh.

He said the businessmen and industrialists, who contributed Rs166 billion, would not find any project for them in the new budget.

The MQM leader also said that it appeared the government was not serious in restoring peace in Karachi where the security situation had worsened. He said the Sindh government also appeared not serious in implementing the National Action Plan. The money spent on the installation of CCTV cameras by the Sindh government could have purchased a vigilance system for the entire subcontinent, he added.

Referring to Karachi operation, he said Rs4 billion was allocated for the Rangers despite the fact that it was not a permanent solution of law and order.

Mr Hassan also demanded that Thar commission report be made public.

He demanded holding of census under the supervision of the army, citing that people had no confidence in the bureaucracy of the Sindh government. In the Sindh Public Service Commission, not a single member out of the 11 members belonged to urban areas, he said. He demanded that four members be given representation from Karachi, Sukkur, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas and one woman member be also nominated for the commission.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2016