Observer Report
Karachi
Sindh government spokesperson Murtaza Wahab on Saturday objected to the Centre’s slashing of the province’s National Finance Commission award in the federal budget 2020-21, saying the Rs234billion reduction would hurt the province’s development.
Wahab, addressing a press conference alongside Sindh’s information minister Nasir Hussain Shah, said: “Provinces receive 80% [of their budget] from the federal government […] How will the province develop and how can we pay the salaries of [government employees]?”
Wahab claimed that the Centre “had not” allocated funds for tackling coronavirus and that the government “could only make” a decision of not imposing a lockdown. “They will blame the provincial chief ministers later on [if they fail to handle the pandemic],” he said, adding: “The federal government does not seem to be helping the provinces in the health sector [..We got to know that it takes a week for getting tested [for Covid-19] in Islamabad.”
