KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has directed all administrative secretaries of the Sindh government to expedite the pace of development work, ensure full utilisation of their annual allocations and complete their development schemes within stipulated period.

The chief minister was presiding over a meeting of all administrative secretaries of the provincial government at the CM House on Thursday.

He said the matter of appointments in the education and local government beyond the strength would be taken up and decided in the next cabinet meeting. He asked the officials concerned to submit a report to him about vacancies in their respective departments within a week.

Mr Shah said he had called this meeting to ascertain the performance of the past seven months of this government with reference to development works and to know job vacancies available in different government departments.

He said during his last tenure as many as 200,000 youths were provided direct and indirect jobs.

The chief minister said that keeping in view the previous years experience in development works, in the current financial year 2013-14, the government had fixed the total development outlay of Rs165 billion and released 50 per cent of the total outlay to departments concerned with first six months of the financial year with strategy that remaining 50 per cent to be released to them during last six months of the financial year to ensure full utilisation.

However, criticism from various quarters was going on which might be due to lack of proper publicity of these works, he added.

The chief minister said proper working strength and skilled manpower was essential to get desired results from government organisations.

He directed that all administrative secretaries to go through their sanctioned working strength and submit vacancies position to him within a week.

He said that positions from BPS-16 and above would be filled through Public Service Commission whereas from BPS-1 to -15 purely on merit through recruitment committees.

He said that despite huge investments in health, education, and local government sectors, people were still facing problems for which officers of the departments concerned were accountable to the government and people as well.

He advised the officers to avoid getting their postings by using political or non-political influences because he believed in merit. He said he himself had earned the confidence of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by implementing this principle while performing his duties as a federal minister with different portfolios, including the portfolio of federal minister of establishment.

Additional Chief Secretary (planning and development) Arif Ahmed Khan said that the impression of certain elements about slow pace of development work was not true, as out of the total development outlay of Rs165 billion, Rs80 billion had been released to the relevant departments during the first half of the financial year and out of which Rs41 billion had been utilised that stood at 53 per cent utilisation of released amount. He said this performance was much better than the other provinces, including Punjab, in some sectors.

He said that due to transactional problem in the first half of the financial year, the utilisation of development funds remained slow, but from the month of January to May, traditionally the pace of development works was always more accelerated and hopefully the released development outlay would be utilised within the stipulated period.

Presenting comparative statement for utilisation of development funds, the secretary of finance said that as compared to Rs33.5 billion, 9.4 per cent of total outlay released in first six months of the financial year 2011-12, the government had released about 50 per cent, i.e. Rs80 billion, in the first six months of the financial year 2013-14, out of which more than Rs41 billion so far had been consumed. He said that this was achieved despite the fact that the government was experiencing receipt shortfall of Rs66 billion, including Rs46 billion from federal government and Rs20 billion from the Sindh government revenue organisations.

Sindh chief secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiyana, additional chief secretary (home) Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah and all secretaries of the provincial government attended the meeting.

Later, the high commissioner of Canada, Greg Giokas, called on the chief minister at the CM House and said he would like to see a conference on agriculture in Sindh where they could share their knowledge and skills about crops, cultivation and related specialties, adds APP.

The chief minister welcomed the proposal and said the Sindh Seed Corporation, Sindh Abadgar Board and Chamber of Agriculture could be asked to share their problems and solutions in the conference.

Mr Giokas also suggested to him that the Sindhi mango could be a brand-leader from Pakistan on the international market if properly exported and systematically marketed.