Karachi, March 28, 2018 (PPI-OT): Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali has said that his government was now focusing more on energy, public private partnership, regional development, and reducing inequity. This he said while addressing the ‘Sindh Development Forum 2018 under the banner of ‘Partnership for Development towards thriving and prosperous Sindh’ organised by Sindh P and D Department here at a Local hotel.
The sector which came under discussion include education, poverty reduction, Agriculture and food security, health, Public Finance Management, water, Sanitation and Municipal Services, Nutrition, Energy and Infrastructure and Economic growth. He said that the last decade of PPP government at federal and provincial levels as an era of Peace, Progress and Prosperity.
“When we reign in the government, we faced enormous challenges of law and order, rising inequity and poverty, and weakening federation,” he said and added such was the level of challenges that individuals and institutions were feeling overawed and there was general feeling of haplessness.
Murad Ali Shah said the biggest contributor to this feeling was precarious law and order situation which fuelled uncertainty and caused capital flight. “The capital flight fuelled poverty which led to violence and crime thus exacerbating poverty,” he said and added the key to breaking this vicious cycle was to overcome the terrorism, sectarian violence, and organized crime.
The chief minister said that We feel pride in saying that since 2013 the extent of these incidences has been brought down tremendously, as a result, confidence of business community and foreign investors has improved which is witnessed by generally improving economic conditions and keen Chinese interest in Special Economic Zones from Sindh. “Yet another testimony is the jubilant final of PSL in which whole Pakistan was the winner,” he said.
Talking about other challenges, Murad Ali Shah said one major challenge was the commodity price shock of mid 2000s which pushed many people below poverty line especially poor farmers. He added that the right response was to come up with Social Safety Net and that’s what we did. “It is no secret that Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) is the flagship safety net in Pakistan, starting from a social safety net, BISP have now grown into comprehensive Social Protection Programme,” he said and added it has national socioeconomic registry, transparent criteria for beneficiary identification and targeting, and possibilities of embedding graduation strategies. Murad Ali Shah went on saying this was the reason that program initiated for consumption smoothening is now used for variety of socioeconomic interventions.
He gave the example of Waseela-e-Sehet and Waseela-e-Taleem, Khidmet Card, etc. “Literally all provincial governments are using BISP for launching social and economic sectors programmes,” he said. The chief minister said that we knew that sustainable decline in poverty can only be realized by using bottom up approaches and that’s why we embarked on Community Development investment for poverty reduction.
“It should especially be noted that community development is not politically attractive as its positive effects manifests only after long gestation period. However, despite the political risks, the government started the program and it has been a great success and now federal government has requested our implanting partner to help in replicating the similar programmes in other parts of country, he said.
He said “now we are leveraging upon the investment, we have been doing since 2009 and using the resulting social capital for launching Poverty Reduction Program,” he said and disclosed “in 2018-19 budget we are starting with Rural Growth Centers as a means to achieve poverty reduction.”
Sindh chief Minister said that we believe in strong federation but we are also clear that strength between federating units lies in fairness of resource distribution. He added if there is inequity in resource distribution then federation weakens. “Realising this, it was only the PPP government which pushed the devolution of resources and the push was done against all odds from those who wanted to perpetuate the concentration of resources and unfairness,” Murad Shah said and added “we take pride in claiming that whole gamut of decentralized planning would not have started if devolution had not happened.”
He said that the current provincial regime is leveraging on the foundation established in the last tenure. The focus of his government was now more on energy, public private partnership, regional development, and reducing inequity. He said that our approach focuses on regional sources of growth, strengthening social and economic equity, adopting fiscal measures for resource generation and finally, using public private partnership.
Talking about Thar coal, Murad Shah said it was almost a forsaken project and his government has brought it to life. He said the premise of energy sovereignty of Pakistan is based on Thar coal deposits. “The whole idea of energy related CPEC investment would not have found firm ground if Thar coal fields were not developed,” he said and added It is his government which made it happen thus paving the way for investment is energy production and transmission.
He said that his government has been working hard on resource availability from various sources, particularly working for increasing own resources, using public private partnership, improving projects bankability etc. “Sindh government has already taken pioneering role in PPP mode, projects like road leading to Thar field, Jhirk Mullah Katiar bridge on River Indus, Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas dual carriage way, PPHI, Sindh Education Foundation, and Grants to Philanthropic Health are all symbol of expanding and deepening basis of PPP in Sindh,” he said proudly.
The chief minister said that his government was fully aware that alongside addressing law and order, parallel efforts to improve business climate was vital, in fact improvement in law and order was one of the inputs to improve business climate. “Notwithstanding our love for our children, stock of reality is necessary to improve our plans. We know that we have resource gaps, we have capacity issues, we have planning challenges and we have prioritization needs, and this is the very reason for holding the forum,” he said.
Earlier, the form was started in the morning with three sessions. In the first session the points which were taken up in group discussion were ‘State of Play; Success and Challenges to date- what has worked and What has not worked; and Priorities for development assistance.’ The objective of the second session was ‘The near future: Developing Joint Strategies and Areas for Collaboration. In this session the key discussion points included Solutions to Development Challenges and Identification of Joint Strategies and Collaboration in coming five to 10 years.
In the third and concluding session synthesis of group deliberations: Sector priorities and Collaboration were discussed through five- minute presentations. In the forum 19 heads of country heads of different Donner agencies had participated. The P and D Minister, Saeed Ghani welcomed the participants while Chairman P and D Mohammad Waseem spoke about the purpose of hosting development Forum- this is an initiative towards thriving and prosperous Sindh, he said.
For more information, contact:
Press Secretary,
Chief Minister House, Sindh
Tel: +92-21-99202019 (Ext: 336)
Website: www.cmsindh.gov.pk