KARACHI, Sept 6: The World Bank report on Sindh economy is being delayed because of sharp conflict in perceptions and assessment of the bank’s researchers and surveyors with the provincial and federal governments on provincial finances and functioning of the departments.

There are now doubts if the document will be released within the year 2006 or even later.

“We have sent a final draft of the report to Sindh government about two months ago and we are waiting for their comments,” a source in World Bank office in Islamabad informed Dawn by telephone on Wednesday.

The Sindh government officials are not at all happy with the World Bank draft report and call it a “document of ignorance”.

“The World Bank team did not see any mining potential in Sindh,” a senior official retorted who wondered as to how could “they ignore provincial annual development outlay has gone up from a mere Rs5 billion about four years ago to Rs32 billion in the current fiscal year”.

“Our financial discipline is worth emulating,” claimed another bureaucrat, who pointed out that the government cleared a State Bank loan of Rs10 billion, paid bills pending for last more than a decade, absorbed salaries increase, pre-paid federal government loans, established pension fund and invested Rs50 billion in development during last five years.

“We are executing projects being funded by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the federal government involving billions of rupees,” he said and wondered as to why the Sindh government would be entrusted with this gigantic task if there is poor governance, corruption and law and order problem.

What has angered most the Sindh government — politicians and bureaucrats both — is the observation “poor governance is the single most important developmental challenge facing Sindh,” in a report based on World Bank team’s survey of stakeholders in May 2005.

“Corruption and law and order, which are derivatives of a weak governance system, emerge as the second and third most critical challenges” is another observation of the same report that has failed to amuse Sindh government functionaries.

The World Bank team found the “coalition nature of the government in Sindh to have been burdened with political stalemates” and that the government find it difficult to “focus on developing the type of strategic vision, action programme and implementation drive” that made Sindh once a leader in implementing reforms in earlier years too unpalatable and impossible to swallow.

The World Bank team also noted “sustained bureaucratic inaction” and Sindh government’s “lack of attention to business related issues” has created a severe policy uncertainty, and heightened the level of distrust between the business community and the public sector institutions.

“The economy has stagnated and the number of people below the poverty line has increased steadily,” is a comment that has embarrassed Sindh government and “irritated federal government” to quote an analyst who said that “Islamabad is now very sensitive to provincial economic disparities issue”.

To illustrate his point, the analyst says that federal government claims to have brought down

poverty level by 10 per cent in two years but has deliberately ignored to mention poverty issue with

reference to the provinces.

Another example of suppressing poverty reports on Sindh is concealing the findings of district based Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey carried out in 2002-03 with the help of Unicef.

The report lies buried deep under the heap of files of the provincial chief minister and according to the officials “now another survey is due”. The report reveals extreme poverty conditions in rural population of the province.

The first World Bank team came to Karachi in August 2004 in response to a request made by the Sindh government to prepare a report on provincial economy.

In its Concept Note the World Bank called Sindh “historically one of more affluent and developed provinces of the country”. The initial observations were that Sindh is clearly left behind other provinces in growth and development.

Karachi’s problems are getting acute, and the renewed country wide focus on economic growth is yet to be pursued with similar vigor at (Sindh) provincial level.

Another World Bank team visited Sindh in January this year and gave its observations on education and finance departments which too were not welcome.

A final presentation of the proposed roadmap of reforms was given to Sindh government in March 2006 and according to a source the final draft of the report was given sometimes in June.

According to the World Bank source the final assessment and findings are shared with authorities, the Sindh government in this respect and their observations and views are sought. The World Bank then gives final touches to the report in light of the views and observations of the authorities involved in the survey and is considered and discussed in the bank’s board of directors before making it public.

The bank committed to prepare the report on Sindh economy before the presentation of 2005-06 budget. It has not been presented in 2006 and analysts and observers doubt if this report would be given before December next.

“The government will like to hold this report even in 2007 or 2008 so that it does not figure in the election campaign,” remarked a political activist.