ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has expressed concern over what it has called reduction in the Sindh government’s share in revenue.

Senator Taj Haider, a former information secretary of the PPP, said in a statement on Saturday that “collapse” of the Federal Board of Revenue, coupled with “fraudulent reduction” in Sindh’s population in the 2017 census, had caused severe paucity of financial resources in the province.

“The drop of 28 per cent in the FBR’s collection has caused a reduction of almost Rs90 billion in Sindh’s share in the NFC [National Finance Commission] divisible pool in the last six months,” he said.

Says migration of people from Punjab to Sindh likely to increase

Sindh’s provincial taxes registered a growth of 18pc during this period, but this addition could not make up for the loss of Rs170-180bn in federal transfers at the end of the year, Mr Haider said.

“Our social sector and development programmes will be severely affected due to resource shortfalls while migration into Sindh of our dispossessed brethren from other provinces is on the increase. We want our true share and certainly not the fake benevolence or empty and insulting rhetoric,” said the senator.

In its election manifesto, he said, the PPP had proposed that the federation and the provinces jointly collect the federal taxes. The resulting increase in tax collection could have reduced the revenue deficit to a great extent besides ensuring larger transfers to the provinces, but unfortunately the federation was too involved in heaping insults on others to be able to listen to any sensible proposal.

“No wonder that under the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s provincial government in Punjab the provincial tax collection has also shown negative growth in the last six months, which will add to the misery of the people of Punjab and increase their migration into Sindh,” Mr Haider said.

The federal government, said the senator, would do well to try and overcome the chaotic shortage of public-sector hospitals in Islamabad, rather than engaging in senseless and insulting propaganda about establishing hospitals in Sindh and other provinces.

The veteran lawmaker said that 60pc patients in the government hospitals of Sindh came from the other three provinces and Islamabad. “Tertiary hospitals for kidney and liver transplants, cardiovascular diseases, (and) cyber knife treatment of cancer etc have been set up and are being run by the Sindh government where the most expensive treatment is done free of cost.

“No one expects the federal government to set up tertiary-level hospitals for these specialised treatments, since they neither have the capacity nor the will to undertake such ventures, but setting up of some secondary-level hospitals in Islamabad would certainly reduce the load of patients at the hospitals in Sindh,” he added.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2019