Sindh provincial ministers spent a busy day in their offices on Friday and disposed of pending files, which were lying on their tables for long and was bringing criticism from the secretariat staff.
The affected staff told Business Recorder that irrigation, agriculture, food, and revenue departments were the worst affected by the slow working of the respective ministers as they had no time to study cases. They said that the ministers were going through only those files which contained routine matters and the ones followed up by their 'friends' and involved policy decisions.
They said that delay in disposal of files had adversely affected development project in the irrigation and agriculture sectors. There was slow flow of funds and few awards of contracts during these five months of the current fiscal year. "The development fund for the current fiscal year is likely to remain unspent because of the interim setup that would remain in place for three months and, by the time new government takes over, the financial year would be near its end."
The chief minister was also reported to have taken time in studying files that were sent to him from the education department. As the cabinet is to be dissolved on November 20, there has come some aggressiveness in the attitude of the ministers and they were devoting time in studying the files to dispose them of as early as possible.
'Kam batayen' (tell me the work) are the usual words which a minister utters after salutation when a call from an acquaintance comes to him. "All of a sudden, they have become polite and appear obliging," said one official of Sindh Secretariat. In the meantime, there were talks about the new setup that would replace the current cabinet.
Opposition political parties say that the interim government in Sindh would be a replica of the government at the Centre. Currently leader of Opposition in Sindh Assembly Nisar Khuhro, Qaim Ali Shah and others expressed disappointment over the interim setup at the Centre and did not expect anything better at provincial levels.