KARACHI/DADU: Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government is going to present a social protection strategy plan in the next budget to serve the poorest of the poor in particular.

He urged party leaders and workers of Karachi division to develop close coordination with the people of the city and help them solve their problems.

He was talking to party leaders and workers of Karachi division who called on him here at the CM House to exchange Eid greetings. In separate programmes, the CM exchanged greetings with provincial ministers, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, provincial secretaries and consuls general of different countries.

Insists Sindh Assembly will pass police law returned by governor

Talking to the party workers, the CM said they (workers) were the assets and backbone of the party. “This is high time to develop further close coordination with the people of this city and work hard for solution of their problems,” he said and added the workers in association with the people of Karachi had to strengthen the hands of PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari who is the “real leader” of this country with the ability and capacity to steer it out of the present sociopolitical and economic crises.

Mr Shah said the provincial government of the PPP was going to launch the plan as the party chairman had pledged in his election campaign and that plan would be presented in the next budget. Under the plan, the people of Sindh, particularly the poorest of the poor would be served to the best of the abilities of the government, he said. The PPP chairman had directed the Sindh government to fight against poverty in the same way like it had fought against terrorism.

Those who met the CM included Rashid Rabbani, Waqar Mehdi, Lal Bux Bhutto, Nadeem Bhutto, Professor N.D. Khan, Qazi Bashir and others.

The CM, in a separate meeting, exchanged Eid greetings with consuls general of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Afghanistan.

Later, the provincial secretaries, led by Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah, called on him at CM House.

‘Fed govt responsible for Sindh’s financial woes’

Mr Shah told journalists at his native village, Wahur, after offering Eid prayer on Wednesday that Sindh government’s financial problems were caused by reduction in its share of funds by the federal government.

He said that because of that the provincial administration faced problems in running the government and completing development schemes on time. The federal government had failed to resolve the country’s economic issues and meet tax collection target, which had seriously affected economic health of all the provinces, he said.

He said the federal government had released Rs170 billion less to Sindh last month than the province’s share and remarked that he wished the federal government success in collection of revenue but he did not see it happening.

He said that 80 per cent expenditures of the provinces depended on recovery of taxes which were collected by the federal government but the nagging economic crisis had deepened and the federal government’s ill-advised policies were further swelling the ranks of the jobless and increasing poverty.

He said the PPP chairman had decided to organise an all parties’ conference shortly to forge consensus among all leaders on launching an effective campaign against federal government.

Police law

About Sindh governor’s objections to proposed police law, he said that it was the governor’s right to object to the bill but they would bring the bill again in Sindh Assembly and the cabinet and it would automatically become law.

He said that for the first time in the country Eid was celebrated twice on government level, which showed a clear rift between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and federal governments. A federal minister was issuing statements against a KP minister though majority of members in the federal government belonged to KP, he said.

Mr Shah said that federal government did not set a good example by refusing to allow Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Maryam Nawaz to meet her father Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif in jail. He said that such things did not happen even in martial laws. The federal government should have allowed Maryam Nawaz to meet her father, he stressed.

Earlier, Mr Shah arrived at Shahbaz Airport in Sehwan where he was received by Hyderabad Commissioner Abbas Baloch, Hyderabad DIG Naeem Shaikh, Jamshoro DC Fareeduddin Mustafa, Jamshoro SSP Tauqeer Mohammad Naeem and MNA Sardar Sikandar Ali Rahpoto.

He offered fateha at the grave of his father Syed Abdullah Shah in Wahur village and later visited district jail in Dadu where he met prisoners, distributed sweets among them and issued directives to jail administration to resolve their problems.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2019