FOR the past several days, protests have been held in different cities of Sindh over the issuance of purportedly fake domiciles and permanent residence certificates in the province. Political parties, nationalist groups and civil society activists claim the practice of issuing the aforesaid documents to non-residents of districts as well as the province is rife thanks to corrupt elements in the bureaucracy. Spurred into action, the Sindh chief minister had launched an inquiry into the matter; findings of the probe thus far, as announced by the provincial information minister, revealed that over 150 bogus domiciles and PRCs had been detected in four districts. He pledged action against the officials responsible, while announcing that an inquiry committee consisting of himself and the chief minister’s legal adviser was looking into the matter. However, the opposition MQM-P had earlier rejected the Sindh government committee, saying the move constituted contempt of court as the party had already approached the Sindh High Court regarding the matter of domiciles. The MQM’s plea is that non-residents of Karachi are given ‘bogus’ domiciles.

This is a very sensitive issue as government jobs, places in educational institutions and other official benefits are at stake. While residents of rural Sindh claim they cannot find work in their own districts and that those from other districts and provinces snap up government jobs, people of urban Sindh say they are deprived of employment and education by those from outside the cities. Perhaps the best way to address this is to reconstitute the committee probing the matter. Along with government officials, representation of non-partisan individuals — including respected names from civil society from both rural and urban Sindh — need to be on the committee to ensure that its work is transparent. With limited government jobs and places in public educational institutions, and a large, growing population, the Sindh administration will have to ensure that the process of granting domiciles/PRCs does not involve corruption, and only those eligible to obtain the documents under the law receive them.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2020