KARACHI:Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the provincial government was paying electricity bills of the local bodies from last many years but our local bodies should have to be self-sufficient by rationalizing their non-development expenditures and increasing their tax collections and base.
This he said on Wednesday while presiding over a joint meeting of Energy and Finance departments to discuss the issues of power companies’ claims of electricity bills outstanding against local bodies.
The chief minister said that the provincial government has paid over Rs22 billion powers bills of local bodies from 2014-19. He added that from 2016 all the bills of local bodies and the provincial government were cleared, and the bills of the years before the privatization of KESC were disputed.
The chief minister constituted a committee comprising Minister Energy Imtiaz Shaikh, Minister Local Government Nasir Shah, Secretary Local Government Roshan Shaikh and Secretary Finance to prepare a plan so that onward local councils could pay their power bills. “How long the provincial government would be paying the bills of the local councils,” he questioned.
In the meeting it was pointed out that there were some local councils that were over staffed and some others were under staffed and some were paying their salaries timely and some were releasing salaries in piecemeal.
“This is not fair and must be rationalized,” the chief minister directed local government department.
The chief minister said that the provincial government was giving Rs100,000 per month to union councils but they were complaining for shortage of funds and then the government increased their funds to Rs200,000 but they kept crying for funds and now the provincial government was giving Rs500,000 per month to each union council but most of them have failed to pay their salaries.
“We have to improve our system and strengthen our local bodies,” he said. Shah directed Secretary local government to meet with local bodies officials and urged them explore ways and means to increase their revenue resources.
The chief minister also said that the privatization of KESC was unilateral act between the company and the federal government. The provincial government was totally kept away from the process. Neither the liabilities of powers against local bodies were shared with the provincial government nor the onus of payment of the bills was put on any institutions; therefore, the provincial government has nothing to do with those bills, he said.
The chief minister issued directive to the local government department to introduce reforms, development a mechanism for payment of salaries, sack ghost employees, and check the pension record.