Sindh budget dissonance

The normal expectation is that any budget presented by a government will inevitably invite dissent from the opposition. What is unprecedented is that the budget should become a bone of contention between members of the cabinet even before it is presented in the House. This is exactly what appears to have transpired on the eve of the presentation of the Sindh budget. The Sindh cabinet meeting called to discuss the province's budget before it was laid before the House proved a fractious affair.
Two ministers are said to have argued strongly against some of the provisions of the budget. If the report is to be believed, things got so bad when the differing points of view could not be reconciled through civilised debate between members of the cabinet that it almost came to an exchange of blows. This extraordinary chain of events can only be explained by reference to the composition and functioning in practice of the ruling coalition in Sindh.
Despite the fact that the PML(Q) is ostensibly the leading component of the Sindh coalition government, enjoying the office of chief minister, its partner the MQM has managed to position itself very strongly within the provincial corridors of power because of its strength in the Sindh legislature that is equal to, if not more, than the rest put together. Additionally the MQM's weight in Sindh cannot be divorced from its crucial position at the Centre in buttressing the present dispensation.
In a situation where the provincial budgets, Sindh included, are heavily dependent on transfers from the Centre, and when the NFC Award is still up in the air, provincial financial resources are as scarce as ever. The provinces' taxation powers are highly circumscribed. In the absence of the new NFC Award, which President General Pervez Musharraf is to decide and which he seems still to be deliberating on, what makes matters worse is that Sindh has not yet managed to win acceptance of its demand for a multi-criteria Award, in which Sindh's interest is that revenue collection be weighted in. A compromise offered by Sindh in the face of the opposition to its original proposal is to limit that weightage to personal income tax collection by each province. This idea too has run into uncertain weather because Punjab objects that this would deprive it of Rs 2 billion, and NWFP and Balochistan of a whole lot more.
Another problem that Sindh shares with the Centre and the other provinces, more or less to the same degree, is that the actual implementation of the development plans mooted in each budget leaves much to be desired. If the Centre suffers from an implementation capacity deficit, the provinces are even worse in this respect. No more than 50 percent of each year's development budget in Sindh is ever actually translated into actual spending on the ground.
The balance of each year's funds meant for development regularly lapses at the end of each fiscal. Most incomplete schemes are then rolled over into next year's development budget as "Ongoing Schemes", with only 50 percent constituted as "New Schemes". While increased financial resources are badly needed by the provinces and the sooner a multi-criteria NFC Award is decided the better for all, it is this incapacity to implement development programmes in practice that requires serious consideration and remedial measures.