Lashing out at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Saturday said despite promises of providing Rs12 billion package for the province, not even a single penny has been released as yet.Speaking at a ceremony here, Shah said, “prime minister arrives every month to encourage us, we are grateful to him for that but fact of the matter is we don’t have bullet-proof vehicles and jackets to fight terrorists”. The chief minister said that 400 officials in Sindh have sacrificed their lives in the ongoing operations against criminals and terrorists. Reacting to grievances expressed by CM Shah, PM’s special assistant Musadik Malik told Geo News that the premier was ready to fulfil all his promises for the progress of Sindh. Citing Metro Bus and Water projects, he said all these projects were to be launched by the Sindh government in collaboration with Islamabad. “However, nothing tangible has come from the provincial government as yet,” he added. Malik said funds would only be released when there was something substantial presented regarding the projects so they can be moved towards implementation. Such affairs can often turn on points too fine for the average person to properly understand. Furthermore, both parties to the dispute have credibility issues. For its part, the Sindh government has preferred to work with expensive reverse osmosis plants sourced largely through a single company, without always ensuring proper after-sales agreements for maintenance and replacement of the filters, thus raising questions about the true intention of these deals. Having taken such a cavalier attitude towards its obligation to provide clean drinking water for its citizens, the provincial government is now faced with the uphill task of explaining its sudden outburst in the case of the K4 project. The federal government is already perceived as a Punjab-based government that has difficulty seeing its obligations through the eyes of any other province, and particularly the city of Karachi. Is the dysfunction in the execution of these projects stemming from real weaknesses on the part of one or the other party to the dispute? Or do they stem from entrenched mindsets and ways of carrying on business that both these parties are well known for? Wherever blame may ultimately lie, what is crucially important is for both the parties in this exchange to make a sincere effort to overcome their differences rather than continue to debate them in public.
pk.shafaqna.com
