HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has accused federal government of dilly-dallying on publication of figures of sixth population census before the announcement of new National Finance Commission (NFC) award and said that instead of fulfilling this prerequisite first, the Centre is blaming provinces for failing to nominate their members to NFC.
Mr Khuhro said at a press conference at the residence of PPP Hyderabad division president Ali Nawaz Shah Rizvi on Thursday that the federal government’s criticism of Sindh for not nominating its member to NFC was a non-issue.
He said that federal ministers had been talking against 18th Amendment and challenged the prime minister to roll back the amendment that had devolved powers to provinces and raised their share in NFC from 43 per cent to 56pc in federal divisible pool.
“Sindh has been granted a donor-funded $100 million solar energy project by the Executive Committee of National Economic Council,” said Mr Khuhro, a member of newly constituted Ecnec.
He said that under the project a 50MW power plant would be set up in Manjhand and the solar energy would be used initially in hospitals and schools and on holidays it would be supplied to national grid.
He said that Sindh government planned to provide solar energy to 200,000 households as the government was also working on a solar park. The federal government might not provide water to Sindh but the province would build coastal highway and dyke on its own to check sea intrusion in coastal areas, he said.
On the pattern of a weir built to block backflow of LBOD’s water a dyke could be built and its technical details would be worked out accordingly, he said, adding the initiative would cost Rs8 billion.
Mr Khuhro criticised the federal government for not including projects of coastal highway and Karachi Circular Railway in CPEC and said that PTI government had lost its credibility earlier than expected.
He questioned withdrawal of Rs500 subsidy on a bag of fertiliser and said the PTI government increased price of petrol, gas and electricity while dollar’s price was rising. Increase in dollar’s rate always led to hike in prices of commodities.
He said that if people today were tearing their electricity bills into pieces in protest against price hike they were in fact emulating Imran Khan, who had burnt electricity bills during his sit-in.
Imran Khan never said he would increase prices of petrol and electricity but he did say he would scale up tax collection and according to Federal Board of Revenue tax collection remained on the lower side as PTI government completed its 100 days in a few days.
“The likes of Fawad Chaudhry and Faisal Vawda are rented stuff. Pervez Musharraf had also claimed that accountability would be vertical and horizontal but then those ‘in service’ were spared. Likewise, PTI has not yet asked Faisal Vawda and Aleem Khan to disclose assets,” he said.
He ridiculed PTI government’s project for five million houses and said that perhaps Imran Khan considered establishment of complaint centre as his achievement.
PPP divisional general secretary Dost Ali Jessar, information secretary Aftab Ahmed Khanzada and others were also present at the news conference.
Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2018
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