Sindh & Federal Governments Confront Again Before Budget

The Sindh and federal governments confront each other ahead of the budget as the provincial government has accused the center of discrimination.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has written a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan which has begotten a frenzy for the government.

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He said that during the past five years, the funding to the province for development schemes diminished gigantically.

Murad Ali Shah wrote that during the span, the number of development schemes for the province reduced from 27 to 6 while the funds were slashed from Rs 27 billion to Rs 5 billion.

The chief minister noted that during the fiscal year 2017-2018, Sindh had 27 schemes worth Rs 27 billion which later cut short to 22 projects worth Rs 14 billion in 2018-2019.

Murad Ali Shah noted that his province only got 13 development projects worth Rs 8 billion in 2019-2020 only 10 uplifting schemes worth Rs 8.25 billion in 2020-2021.

The official highlighted that the province will only get 6 development schemes worth Rs 5. 6 billion only in the next fiscal year.

He cited that the federal government had deprived Sindh of 21 development schemes and funding of Rs 22 billion in the last five years.

Pandemic squeezed funding

One of the factors behind squeezing funds is the coronavirus pandemic that took a hard toll on the economic activities and resulted in reduced tax revenue.

The federal government has also cut the tax revenue target from Rs 4,963 billion to 4,733 billion which was earlier set to meet the condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Thus, Sindh’s share from the national revenue has been reduced by Rs 30 billion which is the primary reason behind the chief minister’s disgruntlement with the federal government.

Minister hits back at Sindh government

In response to the letter, Federal Planning Minister Asad Umar claimed that the Sindh government was slow in spending the development budget, citing it as the major reason behind the cut in development funds.

The minister quoted figures of the ministry of finance and planning and told that Sindh’s expenditure on development was less than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) after Punjab during the first nine months of the current fiscal year.

Asad Umar told that KP spent Rs 94 billion on development projects in the corresponding period while Sindh’s expenditure was Rs 77 billion.