KARACHI: Senior Information Minister Nisar Ahmad Khuhro has said that the federal government has yet to release Sindh’s outstanding share of Rs50 billion in the National Finance Commission award and the Workers’ Welfare Fund as well as the funds of departments like the EOBI, Zakat and Ushr devolved to the provinces.

He added that the federal government delayed the release of funds, thus badly affecting the pace of progress in Sindh though the Pakistan Peoples Party after over three-decade-long struggle had ensured that the provinces got autonomy.

Mr Khuhro expressed the views while addressing a press conference in his chamber at the Sindh Assembly building on Monday. He was responding to the question that when the pitiable condition of the people of Sindh would change as they had been giving their mandate to the PPP for the past 40 years.

The minister said that the 18th constitutional amendment was passed by the legislature after years-long struggle. According to the NFC award, he said, the federal government had to pay Rs164 billion of the share to Sindh but Rs50 billion was still outstanding against it.

In reply to another question, the minister said that development fund was misused during the time of military regimes. Huge funds were spent on the projects and construction of school buildings without selecting their appropriate locations first, with the result that they were later used by influential people of the area as their Autaq.

The people of Sindh would never vote for those who had been in the forefront strengthening dictators’ rule, he said. He said Imran Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, had miserably failed in the first phase of the local government polls in Sindh and the fate of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was no different from the PTI’s.

In the second phase of the elections, 51,000 police and 3,700 paramilitary personnel would be deployed to ensure peaceful elections, he said.

At sensitive and most sensitive polling stations, the Rangers would be deployed along with the police while the army would be available as backup support wherever the situation demanded, the minister added.

Earlier, Mr Khuhro clarified the Sindh government position about postponement of the local government elections, scheduled for Nov 19, in Sanghar. He said the Sindh government had not demanded postponement of the polls in Sanghar.

He said Pir Pagaro, too, was satisfied with the measures taken by the Sindh government as well as over the judicial inquiry ordered for the Khairpur violence. He said: “It was the decision of the Election Commission to postpone the elections in Sanghar.”

He thanked the people of Mithi, Sujawal and Thatta for extending a rousing welcome to PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. He said Mr Bhutto-Zardari was on the streets among his supporters and would play his due role for the people of Sindh just like his mother Benazir Bhutto without caring much for his life. On Tuesday, he added, the PPP chief would visit Badin.

He said those involved in politics of sit-ins would never succeed in their designs. The results of the Nov 19 polls would not be different from those of the first phase of the local government elections, he said. The supporters of military dictators and anti-Sindh projects such as the Kalabagh dam would never be acceptable to the people of Sindh, he said, recalling that Imran Khan had been supporter of former army chief Pervez Musharraf in the referendum.

Similarly, he said, Nawaz Sharif had made all-out efforts to muster support for the Kalabagh dam in the past but miserably failed.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2015