KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government during the past nine years has enhanced the development budgetary allocations from Rs55 billion in 2008-9 to Rs274bn in 2017-18 just to uplift peoples’ lives, livelihood and well-being.

“We under the dynamic leadership of chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari intend to change the destiny of the people of Sindh through collaborative efforts and a serious sense of purpose,” he added.

This he said while participating in a policy dialogue on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) convened by the task force headed by MPA Pir Mujeeb in collaboration with the UNDP, provincial government and SDG Unit here at a local hotel on Thursday.

Mr Shah said that just to achieve the SDGs and related targets, it was crucial to engage high-level political forums to mobilise and coordinate with public institutions and policies. “Though Sindh has taken many initiatives to achieve the SDG targets, however, we realise that the holistic achievement of the SDGs is only possible if they are integrated with the ongoing provincial planning processes,” he said.

“Given the wider scope of the SDGs and the increased number of targets and indicators, there is a strong need for political will and active participation of all key government agencies to implement the SDGs at national and sub-national level,” Mr Shah said and added the SDGs could be achieved successfully by reinforcing policies across government departments and agencies.

Giving an overview of the Annual Development Plan (ADP) in Sindh, the chief minister said it was Rs55bn in 2008-09 which was increased by the PPP government to Rs161bn in 2012-13 and then again to Rs274bn in 2017-18. “These funds include the development allocation for district plans, which was Rs12bn in 2008-09 and was increased to Rs30bn in 2017-18,” he said.

With the social sector devolved to provinces, there was a need to develop robust mechanisms at sub-national and inter-provincial levels to mainstream SDGs in existing sectoral planning via ADPs and long-term budgetary frameworks, Mr Shah said and added that “in this regard, a much-needed localisation of the SDGs is possible through a decentralised political response to lingering development deficits at the local and sub-national levels”.

Mr Shah said his government in collaboration with the UNDP and other development partners aimed to focus on three areas leading to informed policymaking and pro-people development paradigm.

He said that the ultimate purpose of political engagement was to create broad-based ownership of the SDGs and informed and influenced resource allocation in line with the SDG framework.

Others who also spoke on the occasion included Khawaja Izhar, MPA Mohammad Rasheed, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Kaiser Bengali and others. The recommendations of the dialogue would be sent to the chief minister for implementation.

Electricity duty collection

Despite collecting electricity duty from consumers on behalf of the provincial government, the power distribution companies (DISCOS) have failed to deposit the amount to the account of Sindh government.

Taking notice of the anomaly, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah directed the energy department to evolve a mechanism and also seek assistance from the State Bank of Pakistan for evolving a system under which the electricity duty collected through electricity bills by DISCOS should directly be transferred in the Sindh government account.

According to a rough estimate around Rs3bn electricity duty was being collected by Karachi Electric (KE) annually besides the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco). They have been collecting the electricity duty, but failed to deposit the amount in the Sindh government’s account.

The chief minister issued this directive while presiding over a meeting regarding payment of electricity bills to DISCOS and collection of electricity duty by them on behalf the provincial government. DISCOS on behalf of the Sindh government were collecting electricity duty from domestic and commercial consumers at the rate of 1.5 per cent and two per cent of the electricity bills respectively, but the amount was not returned to the provincial government, he said.

The CM also directed the minister of energy to constitute a committee under secretary energy to reconcile the figures of electricity duty with DISCOS and direct them to deposit the amount in the Sindh government account.

The meeting was attended by Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh, Adviser to CM Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah, principal secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro, finance secretary Najam Shah, energy secretary Musadiq Khan and other officers.

Mr Shah also asked the minister of energy to meet with the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan and get a system evolved under which payment of electricity duty, paid through electricity bills, might be deposited directly in the provincial government’s account.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2019