By Dr.Abdul Razak Shaikh,
The Sindh government allocated Rs284.5 billion for provincial Annual Development Plan (ADP) for the next fiscal (2019-20) against Rs343.9 billion budget estimates and Rs172.9 billion revised estimates for the current fiscal year.
The budget 2019-20 was presented in the provincial assembly on Friday by Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah.
The actual size of the provincial ADP for next fiscal is Rs208 billion and after adding Rs51.2 billion in the foreign project as assistance (FPA), federal grants of Rs41 billion and district ADP of Rs20 billion the total outlay comes to round Rs284.5 billion.
Syed Murad Ali Shah, who also holds the provincial finance minister portfolio complained about reducing the development expenditure to Rs172.9 billion from budget estimates of Rs343.9 billion owing to lesser transfers from the federal government.
Consequently, many developments schemes could not be taken up while others have been delayed due to non-availability of funds.
In the budget 15 percent, salary and pension for government employees have been increased, larger than the federal government, Punjab, KPK and Baluchistan. The raise will be applicable to all grades of employees of Sindh and the PPP government will get the benefit of this salary increase from employees in the future.
To boost education in the province, the government has proposed to end examination and enrollment fees for matriculation and intermediate students. The province has also proposed an allocation of funds for the construction of two small dams to resolve the problem of water shortage in Karachi.
Sindh will receive Rs5 billion from the federal government and Rs51.14 billion from external sources for its development works, according to the budget papers.
The thrust of the Sindh the budget also seems to be on current expenditures going by a comparison of budgeted development spending from last year to this year, again in contrast to Punjab that has kept current expenditures restrained and invested its resources in an expansion of development spending. The Chief Minister, Murad Ali Shah, attributes this to lower transfers from the center under the NFC award, but there are grounds to be skeptical of this claim. The provincial government has different priorities that are better served through current spending instead.
On the development side, there is a continued focus on building and construction for the new resources that are going into the education sector, and very little on pedagogy, teacher-training and the software of public education. A brick-and-mortar approach to building state capacity is still the main thrust of the budget. Continued allocations for public transport in Karachi show that the government is serious about the bus lines they are intending to build. But no major shift in strategy or spending or revenue priorities is in evidence. To top it all, the province has not restrained its expectation of transfers from the center for the next fiscal year, despite strong demands from the federal government to run large surpluses this year to help it with its deficit-containment strategy. Punjab has obliged but Sindh appears indifferent. In the year ahead, this is likely to emerge as a bone of contention, because given the shape of things; transfers to the provinces will probably come under greater strain. The budget shows it will be business as usual next year.
Despite the federal government’s decision to take over three major hospitals in Karachi, Sindh the government announced to run the hospitals and allocated Rs15 billion for the same.
During the post-budget the briefing, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said, we have filed a review petition in the Supreme Court (SC). The notification issued by the federal government to take over Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) has no legal value.
The court has clearly given directives to the federal government to first compensate the Sindh government for its investment on the hospitals. So, they cannot run these facilities until or unless pay to the Sindh government.
The federal government has not allocated a single penny for these hospitals, how they could run them. It is easy to issue a notification sitting Islamabad, but difficult to run the affairs of these public hospitals.
Sindh government has made a significant investment in the three health facilities and added that some more projects are in the pipeline. I would like to give you an example of NICVD when the federal government handed it over to us after the 18th Amendment. At that time, in 2011-12, the allocation for NICVD was Rs355 million and we have enhanced it to Rs8.8 billion in 2018-19.
In Sindh Budget Rs52 billion has been announced for Karachi, that the government has allocated Rs36 billion for the city in Annual Development Programme (ADP) and a further Rs16 billion would be borrowed from foreign project assistants.
The provincial government has allocated Rs12.3 billion for Social Protection and Poverty Reduction Programme in the development of budget 2019-20. Under this, there will be a focus on three major interventions, Peoples Poverty Reduction Programme (PPRP), Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) and Social Protection.
The Sehwan and Jamshoro road, which has become notorious because of frequent accidents, was estimated at around Rs14 billion. Sindh has already released its share, Rs7 billion, the federal government is unwilling to release the amount. In the current PSDP, they have only allocated Rs2 billion for it, which is Un-justification with the passengers traveling that area.
