The Sindh government decided on Wednesday to approach the Centre for ensuring implementation of complete devolution to the provinces of departments mandated under the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
The decision came at a meeting presided over by Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah on Wednesday at the Chief Minister’s House.
The meeting was attended by Sindh Chief Secretary Raja Muhammad Abbas, Planning and Development (P&D) additional chief secretary, Secretary to Chief Minister, Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority Managing Director and Sindh Advocate General among the secretaries of provincial Education, Finance, Rehabilitation, Agriculture, Health, Electric Power, Culture, Tourism, Minority Affairs, Labour, Law, Inter-Provincial Coordination, Zakat, Sindh Board of Investment and Social Welfare departments.
At the meeting, the participants were informed that the provincial departments yet to be devolved are Health, Population Welfare, Minority Affairs, Sports, Youth Affairs, Social Welfare, Labour, Tourism, Culture, Environment and Alternate Energy.
It was decided that the provincial government would demand the federal government to affect the devolution under the 18th amendment in its totality. Meanwhile, the affected departments should make their cases/claims fully defendable and get them duly corroborated by legal provisions before referring them to the law department for opinion.
At the meeting, the chief minister stated that the Council of Common Interest (CCI) is an important forum to discuss and represent views, aspirations, needs and demands of the people of the province, and as such the share of collection of Sindh province should be properly accounted and the four-tier formula on all resources taken in consideration.
He said that after the passage of 18th amendment, many departments have been devolved while some important departments are yet to be devolved. Many meetings have been held but some provinces have objected to certain decisions, he added.
In his detailed presentation at the meeting, IPC Secretary Mushtaq Ahmed Shaikh said the last CCI meeting was held on agenda pertaining to distribution of Zakat and arrears of unutilised funds, approval of special economic zones bill, damage compensation for citizens programme, co-financing of public debt management and supervision policy, Gas Infrastructure Development levy for laying pipelines to import gas, liquefied natural gas, privatisation of power sector entity and the population and housing census.
As per decision of CCI, Zakat being a provincial subject, the provincial government should hold discussions for evolving a mechanism for collection of Zakat and its distribution. It was also decided that the present system of distribution of funds may be followed until the formulation of a consensual procedure.
The CCI had also approved the special economic zones bill-2011, while the IDA liability of US$125 million shall be shared to an extent of 75 percent by the provinces and the remaining 25 percent by the federal government. All the proposals under Public Debt Management and supervision policy were approved, including levying the Gas Infrastructure Development for laying gas pipelines.
Regarding privatisation of power sector entities, the CCI had decided that the chief secretaries of provinces shall be members of their respective privatisation boards and the provincial chief ministers shall be the members of Cabinet Committee.
For the census, the Sindh government had recommended that the results of the house census shall be ignored and the army requested to undertake the operation.
Regarding the decisions of the Devolution Cabinet Committee meeting held on July 6, the IPC secretary stated that the federal government should be urged to affect the devolution in its totality as per the spirit of the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
He said the CCI had decided that the Water and Power Minister should develop a scheme with foreign funding for development of infrastructure to support the early completion of Thar coal power project.
The Railways minister was asked at the meeting to present a detailed briefing on their working in the next meeting of the council while the statistics division will give briefing on the population census in the next meeting.
Regarding the Thar coal project, a few infrastructural proposals pointed out by the chief minister worth an estimated expenditure of Rs 148.11 billion, including Rs 27 billion for water supply, Rs 10 billion for effluent disposal, Rs 89 billion for laying power transmission lines from Thar, Rs 4.96 billion for roads and Rs 17 billion for railway tracks were also discussed at the meeting.
On the recommendation of a high-powered parliamentary commission to ensure implementation of the 18th amendment that envisaged more administrative and financial autonomy for the federating units, ten federal ministries were devolved to the provinces in two phases. Later, the federal cabinet approved the devolution of seven more ministries – women development, minority affairs, sports, environment, health, food and agriculture, and labour and manpower – to the provinces.
After the final phase of the implementation of the 18th amendment, the total number of devolved ministries from the federal level was 17.
