The Sindh Assembly is one big happy family. Even the token number of legislators that had started the current tenure in the Opposition has mostly been vowed to the Treasury Benches. So, it comes as a little surprise that MPAs are on the whole appreciative of the announced fiscal plan for the province.
However, the document put forth by Sindh is arguably, as removed from the urgent and pressing needs of the economy as those presented by the Centre and Punjab. Plastered with the misnomer of populist budget, the document envisages a deficit for the province, despite the Federal Governments plan for a net surplus from the provinces.
The higher spending is supposed to sit in Murad Ali Shahs plan for creating maximum space for development, going by his post-budget press conference. But closer scrutiny reveals desperation to win votes through notes.
Development expenditures shall be boosted, going by the allocation of Rs.231 billion which is 48 percent higher than that of the previous year. Sindh government also intends to boost the Education budget by 50 percent over FY12 to Rs.112 billion, but a lions share of this allocation will go towards current spending; not new schools. In fact, only about Rs.12 billion is intended as capital expenditure under this head.
The Economic Affairs and Social Protection categories bag the greatest share of the pie in the provinces development spending. But theres an interesting aspect to the two. In the case of Economic Affairs, the budgeted expenditure in FY12 was 22 percent of the total development outlay, while actually 55 percent of the same was spent on it. On the other hand, the budgeted outlay for Social Protection was 62 percent of the total development expenditure for FY12 while only 25 percent of the net amount was spent on it.
Slippages in Economic Affairs in FY12 came majorly from the elusive others sub-head in agriculture (Rs.6 billion instead of the budgeted Rs.2.5 billion). Besides this, canal irrigation, irrigation research and design, coastal development authority, roads and buildings and structures also got more from the kitty than planned by the provincial government.
Poverty alleviation, on the other hand, attracted a measly Rs.113 million instead of the allocated Rs.19 billion. This time around there is no allocation for this purpose, at all.
Among other dubious heads where cash will be doled out, if all goes according to the plan, is the public-private partnership expenditure which has traditionally been guilty of major slippages from the Economic Affairs spending.
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