KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah has revealed that the Sindh government witnessed a shortfall of Rs104 billion in federal transfers this year.
He was speaking to the media after attending National Community Convention organised by HANDS at Gadap on Monday.
“This declining trend is bound to affect our cash flow and development endeavours,” said the Sindh CM.
To a question, he replied that the federal government has transferred Rs104 billion less than the share of the provincial government this year. “In the last financial year, the federal government had transferred Rs266 billion during the first seven months; however, they have transferred only Rs256 in the current financial year,” he said while adding that it was for the first time in Pakistan’s history that federal transfers have come down as compared to a previous year.
The Sindh chief minister further told that the federal government had transferred Rs56 billion in January 2018 while only Rs38 billion was transferred in January 2019.
“I was moving fast on the development of the province but I have stopped development endeavours after looking at the federal transfer trend,” Murad deplored while lamenting that other commitments made by the provincial government would also suffer due to the “dangerous declining trend”.
He said that he had heard that the federal government has failed to achieve its revenue collection targets which is why it was now planning to take away the provincial government’s authority of collecting agriculture, GST on goods and other taxes. “The provincial government has shown a 22 per cent increase in its annual revenue collections during the the last five years while the federal government could only show an eight per cent increase,” he added.
“Instead of appreciating and rewarding the provincial government, the federal government is planning to take away the provincial government’s power of collecting taxes falling under its domain. If the power of tax collections go under the federal government, what would happen with national and provincial exchequers can only be imagined,” he further added.
The chief minister also said that the provincial government can collect taxes in a better way than the federal government because of being closer to consumers. “I am of the opinion that power of the collection of sales taxes should be given to the provinces completely,” he said.
Replying to another question, the Sindh CM said that his government would shortly release arrears of media houses on the condition that employees would be given outstanding salaries.
He added that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, during his visit to Karachi Press Club last week, had assured the newsmen that he was working hard to resolve their issues of unemployment, retrenchment and lack of freedom of expression.
