KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that he will form his cabinet soon after consulting with Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and PPP-Parliamentarian’s president Asif Ali Zardari.

“Mr Zardari is currently busy in Islamabad. He will provide his input [about the cabinet] when he gets free,” Murad said while talking to media persons outside the mausoleum of the Father of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, on Wednesday.

Accompanied by Sindh Assembly Speaker Awais Qadir Shah, Deputy Speaker Naveed Anthony, MPAs Saeed Ghani, Mukesh Chawla, Sadia Javed and others, the chief minister laid wreath at the grave and offered fateha.

Mr Shah said that the first thing he would do would be implementation of the 10-point election manifesto of his chairman for which he was mobilising all the departments concerned of his government.

“Work on most of the points on the manifesto had already been started by his previous government in selected districts and he will now expand their scope to the entire province,” he said.

Mr Shah thanked the party leadership for reposing their trust in him by making him chief minister for the third time in a row and said that law and order conditions had greatly improved as compared to 2018 after he had taken a number of tangible measures to strengthen police, empowered the force with necessary weapons, equipment and gadgets and boosted their confidence by raising their salaries and other benefits.

He said that he gave top priority to rule of law. In view of forecast for heavy rains in the province he had issued necessary instructions to all civic agencies and local bodies, he said.

Earlier, the chief minister flew to Larkana where he paid respects to PPP founder leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his slain daughter Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto by laying wreaths and offering fateha at their graves in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto village. He also offered fateha at the graves of Begum Nusrat Bhutto, Mir Murtaza Bhutto and Shahnawaz Bhutto.

Talking to journalists outside the mausoleum, he said that Asif Ali Zardari, too, would visit Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto after taking oath as President of Pakistan. “We have to devote our energies to the rehabilitation of flood-affected people. I shall try my level best to live up to peoples’ expectations,” he said.

He said in answer to a question about police failure to arrest killers of journalist Jan Mohammad Mahar: “We will not sit idle till the arrest of Mahar’s killers.”

He prayed for ASI Sultan Shah and others who were killed during election and announced paying compensation and a job to the ASI’s heir.

The chief minister flew to Sehwan from Larkana where he visited ancestral graveyard in his native village, Wahur, and offered fateha at the graves of his parents. Thereafter, he arrived at the shrine of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, laid wreath on the grave and reviewed arrangements for the urs.

He told journalists outside the shrine that the remaining ministries in federal government needed to be devolved and elite-specific subsidies were required to be discontinued.

Published in Dawn, February 29th, 2024