Delay in the appointment of provincial Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Development, is creating hurdles for Planning and Development (P&D) department to prepare Annual Development Program (ADP) 2010-11 on time. Sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday that Munawar Opel was removed as ACS in February. Since then no official has been appointed to the post, creating problems for P&D to deal with official matters.
They said that no departmental meeting has so far been convened to discuss the core issues for the preparation of the ADP 2010-11, smudging the hope of finalising it in May. Although an acting ACS has been appointed, the department needs proper arrangement in this regard to pay heed for the accomplishment of ongoing development projects, they said.
They said the development projects need full participation from the government and the development experts and institutions; however the P&D has failed to fulfil the required demand because of said issue. They said the top bureaucrats are misusing their powers where several contracts of development schemes are being granted to their favourite private firms without evaluating their competency.
They said the private sector is being inducted in several development schemes without strengthening the monitoring mechanism by recruiting more professionals, providing lucrative opportunities to malpractitioners. They said the Sindh province could not be developed unless the concern authorities would not take bold steps to eradicate political flavour in the decision making process.
They said the province is facing acute shortage of water, food scarcity, environmental degradation, rise in inflation, falling literacy rate, increase in rural-urban income gap, crumbling institutions, burden of external debt etc because of improper planning and its inappropriate implementation.