Sindh government committed to spending Rs70bn on Karachi's development: CM

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday made it clear that his government is committed to spending up to Rs70 billion on Karachi's development by the next fiscal year and questioned prime minister for his 'silence' over the worst electricity load shedding by K-Electric.

At the concluding session of budget 2020-21, he showed astonishment that the Federal Water and Power Minister and the Premier himself are silence over the worst load shedding of electricity in Karachi and other parts of Sindh. He condemned the long-hours power cuts.

The country is faced with a gigantic crisis of Covid-19, he said. He told that Sindh has a record of 75,168 Covid-19 infected patients, while 54 percent of them have recovered from the disease. In Punjab 29 percent of patients have gotten well from Covid-19. The mortality rate in Sindh stands at 1.5 percent, the Chief Minister added.

Sindh has a capacity to conduct 14,000 Covid-19 tests per day, he said. Comparing to Punjab, he said that the population of Sindh is half but more tests were made. On April 1, 2020, he said, the ICU beds for coronavirus were 91 and on June 24 they were increased to 453 while HDU beds grew by 859 in Sindh. Some 600 ICU beds will soon be completed. At the government-run hospitals, he said, the number of ICU beds is 329.

He told the legislature that the Auditor General of Pakistan has decided to carry out the audit of expenditures incurred by the Sindh government for Covid-19. The audit will start from July 1 this year in the Sindh government's departments on Covid-19.

The Sindh government ignored Karachi's development in the fiscal budget 2020-21, Opposition Leader, Firdous Shamim Naqvi of PTI showed his concerns on the assembly floor, saying that the city is a 'milk giving cow', which the PPP rulers intend to kill. He said that Chief Minister Sindh can be a 'Mr. bright but not Mr. right'.

In the post-budget presentation speech, he said, the Sindh government, although places good uplift schemes in the fiscal plans, but never completes them. He said that the government has to be accountable for its promises made in the past. On lockdown, he said that the Sindh government may have made some good decisions.

The Thar population is 1.7 million while a total of 73 percent of kids never attain full growth, he said and added that the opposition failed to recognise the government healthcare management system. He said that nearly five percent of people die of TB disease and eight percent of heart disease, while questioning what is holding back establishment of Sukkur hospital.

Firdous Shamim said that the Sindh government had pledged to provide the province with 70 degree colleges but none was developed. He also showed concerns over growing briberies in the province, saying that with 'greasing the palm' anything can be done even a common man cannot register his FIR with the police. "About 95 percent of schools lack basic facilities," the Opposition Leader said.

Three schemes of the Sindh Health Department are part of budget monetary allocations for the last 10 years, he said, adding that over 100 uplift schemes of the same department could not finish despite the passage of many years. Similarly, the Sindh Local Government Department's 245 schemes are still pending. The Sindh Agriculture Department has dozens of schemes still ongoing for the last five years, he was of the view.

He alleged the Chief Minister Sindh of stopping progress on the K-IV water project, as work on the project has been halted since Nov 2018. Potable water in Karachi is a dire need of the public. Some 46 percent of diseases are waterborne, Firdous Shamim Naqvi said, adding that huge number of people die of contaminated water. He also asked the Sindh government of what is holding them back from releasing the Uzair Baloch JIT report.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020