KARACHI: Terming it a “failed” budget, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Khwaja Izharul Hasan on Monday rejected the Sindh government’s budget for financial year 2018-19 on behalf of the opposition and said that the document was prepared by using the “copy and paste tools”.

“It is a failed budget, which has been prepared by using the copy and paste tools by the government functionaries and we, the whole opposition in the house, strongly reject [it],” said Mr Hasan during his speech in the Sindh Assembly session, with Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani in the chair.

Most of the time in Monday’s sitting was consumed by the opposition leader’s speech, which continued for over three hours.

Members from both sides of the aisle calmly listened to his speech, except on two occasions when they stood up in protest over certain remarks. However, Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza, who was in the chair then, and senior opposition and treasury members ensured the situation did not deteriorate.

During the weeklong debate on the budget 70 members — 40 from opposition and 30 from the treasury side — have spoken.

Speaker Durrani said he would send performance report of each member to their party leaderships “so that they could see what their members have done here”.

Seventy lawmakers have so far participated in the budget debate

Khwaja Izhar spoke over various ministries during his lengthy speech in which he countered the government’s rosy claims.

He said all the ministers and other treasury members had praised the budget only to ensure that they get party tickets for the next general elections.

He candidly said that the government had destroyed the constituencies of the opposition members deliberately, yet, they failed to deliver to their own strongholds as well.

“Show me just one union council in Larkana or any area which you have won in Sindh that avails all basic facilities,” he asked as Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah kept taking notes of his speech. “Not a single UC in whole Sindh ... is good for decent human living.”

Even in Karachi, Mr Hasan continued, areas like Lyari which PPP called its strongholds offered an “extremely pathetic view”.

“The people of Lyari are protesting for water, but, no one in the government is listening,” he said.

‘94pc of taxes being collected from Karachi’

He disputed the government’s claim that next year’s budget would be tax free, saying 92 per cent of the taxes the provincial government was collecting were indirect taxes, which were just 0.5pc less than last year’s figure.

He said all those were urban taxes; of which 94pc were being collected from Karachi, four per cent from Hyderabad and the remaining from the rest of the province.

He said more than 47 sectors were taxed, and “it was just air, which has not yet been taxed”.

He said several sectors, like construction, were doubly taxed by the federal and the provincial governments.

“All these taxes are being collected, but, what benefits the taxpayers are getting in return?” he asked and replied, “Nothing.”

Khwaja Izhar said the PPP government in Sindh had spent Rs1,500 billion in the name of development, but the conditions on ground showed nothing of those hefty funds had been utilised as per the government’s claims.

He claimed the government had cut “backdoor deals” with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s government in Islamabad because of which the PPP did not protest against the federal government’s denial in constituting the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award since 2015.

Similarly, he added, the Sindh government had cut another deal with the PML-N government regarding the population census when “15 million people of Karachi have not been shown in the census figures”.

He said in most sectors most development funds had lapsed, which exposed the government’s flawed fiscal policy. He said there was no mention of the labour policy in the budget, thus there was no relief for workers and peasants. Similarly, the budget did not give any policy about business community, he added.

White paper

Khwaja Izhar said that the opposition did not offer any shadow budget since last fiscal year because all recommendations in that painstakingly prepared document were eventually thrown into bin by the government.

However, he said the opposition had made a white paper to expose the government’s blunders.

He said the government had failed to remove encroachments along the route of the much-delayed Karachi Circular Railway. He said that the KCR was “a project which had never been touched for five years”.

He said most schemes of the local government department were old ones. He said major water supply schemes like K-IV had been blocked for years, but water was being denied to the people.

He said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement would give jobs to its members and supporters again if it won elections like the PPP had given during its tenure.

He said former military dictator retired General Pervez Musharraf released huge funds for the development of Karachi.

He said there was a conspiracy behind the violence after the assassination of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto aiming at destroying Sindh’s cities. “I have seen those faces [engaged in violence] ... those faces did not belong to this city.”

He said more than Rs500bn had been utilised on improving security in Sindh in the past decade, yet, the government had failed to install surveillance cameras in its capital.

Peace in Karachi not Sindh govt’s credit

He said peace returned to the city after establishment of the apex committee, thus, “we cannot give credit for peace in Karachi to the provincial government”.

He said the government had released grants of Rs800m, yet, it did not benefit hockey goalkeeper Mansoor Ahmed who died recently.

He said the quota system in Sindh had legally been abolished yet it was being practiced as usual.

Mr Hasan said the demand for a new province relating to Karachi was as old as 1962 when Mehmoodul Haq Usmani published pamphlets for it.

He highlighted sacrifices rendered by the founders of Pakistan for economic uplift of the country when it was founded in 1947.

Referring to the MQM’s defectors, the opposition leader said he did not accuse Naila Munir — an MQM MPA who is now with the Pak Sarzameen Party — of ‘selling’ her vote in the Senate elections, but “these friends of [ours] are finding shelter neither here, nor there”.

Qaim highlights Bhutto’s role in saving Pakistan

Earlier, former chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah spoke at length over Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s role in 1971 events while referring to certain accusations made against him in some speeches by the opposition members.

He said Mr Bhutto had left no stone unturned in saving Pakistan from breaking.

He said Sindh had tangibly improved during the eight years when he was the chief minister and two years of his successor Murad Ali Shah as the province was totally in ruins when they assumed power in 2008.

Senior Minister Nisar Khuhro said Sindh had learned to have its own path to progress in the wake of the federal government’s denial in issuing legitimate funds of the province.

He said from Rs4bn Sindh was now collecting Rs100bn in the head of sales tax on services.

Law Minister Zia Lanjar said new administrative unit in Sindh was part of a planned conspiracy.

Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza said 75pc of Sindh’s revenue were based on federal transfers, thus, cuts by Islamabad in Sindh’s share hugely affected the province.

PML-N’s Shafi Jamote and PPP’s Pir Mujeebul Haq also spoke.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2018