The Sindh provincial government is set to weed out 'ghost' employees from municipal departments and put corrupt officials behind the bars with rigorous imprisonment, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon told the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday.
Sharjeel Memon, who also holds ministerial responsibilities for Sindh Local Governments Department, blamed the local bodies system, introduced by the ex-military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf (retired), and had been enforced in the country for civic insanitation and financial mismanagement in the Sindh province.
Speaking on a resolution tabled by the opposition leader, Shaharyar Khan Mahar, he, however, shrugged off to ensure full cleanliness drive in the province and especially in the provincial metropolis Karachi, and improve its civic outlook. He said that the previous local bodies system had bestowed huge financial and administrative powers on Nazims, which brought about monetary and unsanitary problems across the province.
The local body's administrations allotted huge lands belonged primarily to health and education sectors, although their basic job had been to ensure sanitation. "These administrations employed officials unrestricted and without any requirements," he said, adding that over-employment caused financial imbalances drying up funds to ensure providing salaries and carrying out civic responsibilities for them.
Warning the ghost employees, he said that each official had now to set up his fresh bank account with submitting biometric prints to draw salary from only Sindh Bank. "The biometric prints submission will start from April 1, and officials have to show up at the bank to register their recognition," he added.
He announced that officials of the sanitary department would now mark their job presence through biometric system at their respective offices, and hoped that the move would help improve cleanliness in the province. The move will also block ways for ghost employees to draw salaries.
"I have empowered the commissioners to take care of municipal departments who have also ensured revenues collection as well," he said, adding that the government had also established a Solid Waste Management Board aiming at lifting tons of garbage and subsequently converting it into energy. He said that the city of Karachi generated around 12,000 tons of garbage a day of which a bigger chunk was being removed regularly. However, he assured the house that his department needed to improve to do more of such job. The government is evolving a new master plan for Karachi to replace the unimplemented one to improve public life and civic infrastructure.
The Sindh Minister blamed the non-implementation of the previous master plan for sanitation problems in the city of Karachi along the growing constructions of high-rise buildings. "The original (master) plan was not implemented," he said, adding that the province was facing old issues which the government had to address and to solve them.
Sharjeel Memon said the Sindh government was soon to launch a website for municipal departments to make the civic authorities' affairs and expenditures transparent and citizens would be able to find the financial details. Sindh Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro told the house that the perception had been wrongly established that the provincial government had not allocated funds for development or it had ignored expenditures on uplift projects. "That perception we reject," he said.
"This house resolves that the Sindh government through local the Government Department ensure that funds provided to the Town Municipal Administration be utilised for the purpose that they are meant for, which is the cleanliness of area, maintenance of drains, functioning of pumping stations of sewerage drains etc," according to the resolution moved by Shaharyar Mahar, which the house rejected with a majority vote.
However, a resolution which PML-F legislator Nand Kumar had tabled was unanimously passed with a wider support from the treasury benches, which stated that "the crop of wheat is ready for harvesting and Bardanas have not yet been provided to farmers. Therefore, this Assembly resolves that the provincial government ensure to purchase the crop".
PPP lawmaker Nadir Magsi supported the resolution and asked the government to step up to meet farmers' demands. He said the wheat harvesting had begun in lower parts of Sindh and the rest would soon start thrashing the crop. He said the government should meet the procurement target and protect farmers from the financial crunch.
A treasury member, Taimur Talpur, said that growers and landlords had suffered huge financial loss for low prices of vegetables and other yields, urging the PPP government to help provide a better opportunity for them this time around to have a good return on wheat crop. Sharjeel Memon criticised the federal government for importing 0.7 million tons of substandard wheat from Ukraine despite Punjab and Sindh had surplus stocks of the commodity.
He termed the wheat import 'incompetence and insincerity' of the federal government that pushed Sindh to suffer with available stocks, besides hurting farmers financially. Dr Mandhro told the house that the wheat procurement procedures would take place with setting up of centres to place orders to the farmers. Sindh Senior Education Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro supported the township schemes which different firms are making in the provincial metropolis.
Speaking on a resolution tabled by PML-N lady lawmaker Sorath Thebo, Khuhro said the construction sector had provided a better opportunity for the public in urban areas to have good apartment complexes even on instalments. "No one objected to housing schemes in Islamabad and Lahore but when it comes to Sindh concerns are raised," he told the house, saying that the urbanisation had been taking place in vertical directions once space for horizontal went short. He said that after divestment in Sindh for poor law and order situation, it was good to see the construction sector to pour capital in the urban development.
The house rejected the resolution with a unanimous vote even from the MQM which is part of the opposition, stating that "this House of representatives of the people of Sindh demands from the Sindh government to stop to sale out Sindh land in cheaper rates to Bahria Town and other housing schemes. It is our demand that these land allot to the poor people of Sindh".