Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the provincial government has witnessed a shortfall of Rs104 billion in the federal transfers this year. "This declining trend is bound to affect our cash flow and development endeavour," he said, talking to the media after attending National Community Convention held under the aegis of HANDS at Gadap, here on Monday.
Answering a question, Murad Shah said the federal government has transferred Rs104 billion less than the actual share of the Sindh government this year. "The federal government had transferred Rs266 billion during the first seven months last year. They have transferred only Rs256 this year," he said, expressing surprise that for the first time in the history of Pakistan, federal transfers came down as compared to the previous year.
The Chief Minister said Centre had transferred Rs56 billion in January 2018 and they transferred only Rs38 billion in January 2019. He said declining trend was dangerous and would badly affect Sindh government's commitments, cash flow and development portfolio. He said he was moving fast on the development of the province but he stopped development endeavour in view of the trend of federal transfers.
He said he had heard that the Centre failed to achieve its revenue collection targets and now planning to strip provincial governments' of the authority regarding collecting agriculture, GST on goods and other taxes. However, the track record of last five years showed a 22 percent increase in provincial government's revenue collection per annum while the federal government could show 8 percent increase. "Instead of appreciating and rewarding the provincial government, the federal government is planning to take away the power of the provincial governments of collecting taxes that fall under its domain," he lamented. Shah said that if the powers of collection of all the taxes go under the command of the federal government what would happen with national and provincial exchequers can only be imagined.
"Provincial governments can collect taxes in a better way than the Centre because the provincial governments were close to the consumers," he said, suggesting that power of collection of sales tax should be given to the provinces completely.
To another question, he said his government would shortly release arrears of media houses with the condition to give the outstanding salaries to their employees. He cited that PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari during his visit to Karachi Press Club assured journalists that he was working hard to resolve their issues relating to unemployment, retrenchment, freedom of expression and speech which Bilawal had termed his own problems.
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