With the opposition in Sindh Assembly under fire for submitting hundreds of what the treasury believed "fake" cut-motions, the provincial legislature passed Rs 364.987 billion Sindh Budget for 2009-10 on Saturday.
The 168-member Sindh Assembly also nodded to the rationalisation or, what Information Minister Shazia Marri said, "fine-tuning" of various duties on electricity, bill of exchange, contracts, MoUs, hotels etc, besides imposing a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) backed penalty ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 100,000 on unregistered vehicles by passing the Sindh Finance Bill, 2009 into law.
Members from treasury and so-called "friendly" opposition benches exchanged barbs when the latter submitted 1,245 cut-motions on 43 of the 59 demands for grants valuing Rs 364.987 billion, that includes Rs 15 billion for district governments and Rs 22 billion federal grants, for the next fiscal year.
Treasury members, Murad Ali Shah and Shazia Marri, led by Leader of the House Qaim Ali Shah claimed that out of 1,245 cut-motions "in fact" only 173 were genuine and the rest had either "stupid, foolish" mistakes of the figures or a lot of "repetition" with some duplicated 80 times.
"A lot of repetition is there in the cut-motions which are in fact 173, as some demands have been repeated 80 times," Qaim, who has also the portfolio of finance minister, said. Irrigation and Power Minister Murad Ali Shah read out the numbers of various motions which he claimed had repeatedly been submitted or carried wrong figures.
"In demand number 128 Rs 1, 67000 have been demanded while the cut-motion demands a reduction of Rs 5 million... I don't want to say that this is stupid, foolish but this should not happen in this august house," he said angrily.
Leader of the Opposition Jam Madad Ali, defending his side, rejected the treasury's "oft-repeated" statement claiming to have an opposition-free house. "The opposition is existed in the house, but our party has asked us to play a constructive role," he maintained.
Referring to the tough-talking Shah's speech, the opposition leader said no one of his members was so "stupid" that he/she could submit duplicate cut-motions. "No repetition is there, however, being a human there may be some mistake," Madad added.
Clarifying Qaim's Friday's statement Madad said he could name many PPP members, who used to visit the office of former Chief Minister Dr Ghulam Arbab Raheem covertly. "Please, not to attend any of our members if they come to you for personal favour... but for public interest we would certainly come to you," he declared.
The opposition members, Abdul Razak Rahimoon, Nusrat Sehr Abbasi and Shehryar Mehar, said they wanted to get the government's "operating expenditure" reduced so that more money could go for the welfare of poor. Referring to the expenses of Chief Minister House, Governor House and other government departments, they said the government should reduce its expenditure on "physical assets" in view of a Rs 16 billion budgetary deficit.
A reconciliatory tone of Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro and leader of the house, however, defused the charged atmosphere as the two PPP leaders appreciated homework of the opposition members, some of them being new.
"Let's not get into that atmosphere," Khuhro said. Qaim, welcoming the opposition's homework on budget, referred to an inflationary trend, excessive raise in federal PSDP for Sindh and 8-9 new capital-intensive poor-friendly initiatives of his government to justify a "purposeful" increase in government's expenditure.
"Please! Do justice because you know about this better than everybody else," he asked the opposition. As expected by the opposition leader, the PPP-dominated house rejected the cut-motions and cleared demands for grants for 2009-10 from 1 to 43 with majority. The remaining 44 to 59 demands were, however, passed unanimously.
Earlier, the schedule of authorised supplementary expenditure for 2008-09 was laid before the house by Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah. The house also adopted Sindh Finance Bill, 2009 clause-by-clause with Qaim highlighting the rationalisation of various duties with no affect whatsoever on the general public.
Later, Information Minister Shazia Marri told media that the new finance bill had cut duty on "bill of exchange" by 50 percent, adjusted stamp duty on contracts, MoUs, supplies, purchase orders etc realistically without burdening the masses, reduced the occupancy tax on hotels by 20 to 40 percent depending on their standard and cut duty on electricity tariff to facilitate all sections of the society.
She said on the recommendation of PAC the government had also imposed a penalty, ranging from Rs 5000 to Rs 100,000, on unregistered vehicles depending on the time of default. Earlier, Qaim Ali Shah (Chief Minister) for Planning and Development and Manzoor Wassan Minister for Works and Services responded to supplementary questions of members during Question Hour. The speaker adjourned the session till Monday (June 29) at 9:30 am.
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