SINCE 2008, the Pakistan People’s Party has governed Sindh for most of the period. Nearly two decades is long enough for any provincial government to be assessed not simply on its promises, announcements or individual projects, but on measurable improvements in public services and the everyday lives of citizens.
The scale of resources available to the province has increased substantially. Sindh’s development budget rose from Rs55 billion in 2008-09 to Rs1.018 trillion in 2025-26, according to the Sindh Government. Over the same period, the provincial government says more than 13,000 development schemes were taken up, of which 9,193 had been completed by early 2026.
The overall provincial budget has also expanded considerably. The Sindh Government placed the total budget for 2025-26 at Rs3.45187 trillion, compared with Rs3.0563 trillion in 2024-25. Education provides a particularly important test. The latest Pakistan Bureau of Statistics Household Integrated Economic Survey shows that 39 percent of children aged 5 to 16 in Sindh were out of school in 2024-25. The figure was 44 percent for girls and 35 percent for boys. Sindh had improved from 42 percent in 2018-19, but the scale of exclusion remains substantial.
School infrastructure raises another important question. Data submitted by the Sindh Education Minister to the Provincial Assembly showed that 40,978 government schools had been assessed for basic facilities. Of these, 26,006 had drinking water, 13,013 had electricity, 17,136 had toilets and 20,913 had boundary walls.
In percentage terms, this means roughly 63.5 percent of the listed schools had drinking-water facilities, 31.8 percent had electricity, 41.8 percent had toilets and 51 percent had boundary walls. These figures provide a legitimate basis for asking why basic facilities remain unavailable in such a large proportion of public schools after years of substantial investment.
The issue is therefore larger than the performance of one department. Sindh’s public-sector record should be examined across education, healthcare, water and sanitation, municipal services, roads, irrigation and rural development. For each sector, citizens should be able to see how much was allocated, how much was actually spent, which projects were completed, which remained unfinished and whether measurable service indicators improved.
The Sindh Government itself has acknowledged the importance of converting public spending into functioning services. In reviewing the development portfolio, the chief minister directed departments to focus on completion, quality and functionality rather than simply announcing new schemes. The government also reported that delays and cost overruns remained concerns in some projects.
That provides a useful standard for evaluating provincial performance: not how many schemes are announced, but how many are completed, functional and producing measurable benefits.
After nearly two decades, the public question is therefore straightforward. How much public money was allocated? How much was actually spent? Where was it spent? And what changed because of that spending?
Answering those questions transparently would provide a far more meaningful assessment of Sindh’s governance record than political slogans on either side. The people of Sindh are entitled to judge their government on results and results can only be judged properly when expenditure and outcomes are both placed in the public record.
—Contributing columnist.
