HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has expressed his reservations over the Sindh part of the China-Pakistan Econo­mic Corridor saying that his government will try to attend the CPEC management meeting, to be held by the end of the next month, to get the Keti Bunder included in the corridor and seek due share of the province’s industrial sector in the industrial zones to be established under the project.

He was speaking to reporters at the residence of Pakistan Peoples Party parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Syed Naveed Qamar after condoling with him the death of his father, Syed Qamaruz­zaman Shah, here on Friday.

Mr Shah said the Sindh government was not against CEPC but just wanted to get the province’s due share in it. “The idea of CPEC was conceived when [PPP co-chairman] Asif Ali Zardari was president, who had paid several visits to China to finalise it. We do have reservations over it [CPEC] and have been expressing them from time to time at various forums like the relevant multi-party conference,” he said.

The chief minister said that he himself would probably attend the November meeting of the CPEC management, and if he couldn’t, then some other senior government functionaries would be there to convince it [to incorporate Sindh’s two recommendations into the project]. “I hope the federal government will support us,” he said.About the issue of resource distribution between the federal and Sindh governments, Mr Shah said that the “situation has worsened over the last three years as far as the financial transactions between the two sides are concerned beca­use resource constraints are certainly there”. There were some issues that used to be raised with the federal government even when there was a PPP-led government at the Centre but it [PPP-led government] had always been considerate towards provincial autonomy as it wanted the provinces to get stronger, he added.

About Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s announcement, made about two years ago, regarding release of several billion rupees for law & order in Sindh, the CM said that “Sindh has not received a single penny out of it. “[Former chief minister] Syed Qaim Ali Shah had approached the Centre and at one stage, we were told that we [Sindh] will get something in kind and we agreed to it. Actually, we needed weapons [for law enforcers]. Later, we procured weapons from the armed forces,” he said.

Mr Shah stated that he did not have any problem with the federal authorities but one thing was clear, that the law & order was a provincial subject. “All federal government [security] agencies work under my command. It’s quite clear and should be seen as such,” he added.

In reply to a question, the chief minister said that the Sindh government had not taken punitive action like freezing accounts of local government institutions. “Since they have just been in place, they are yet to be provided funds,” he said, adding that the matter would be settled within the next few days.

He held out the assurance that the LGs would be given powers as enshrined in the Sindh Local Gov­er­n­ment Act, 2013, he said it was for the first time that the Sindh Assembly had made legislation for these institutions. Until the law was enacted, they were being run through ordinances which caused an imbalance in resource distribution, he said.

The chief minister told a questioner that the ‘provincial finance commission’ would be set up soon for which he, in his capacity as the finance minister, had already carried out the groundwork.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2016