Cabinet approves draft of Covid-19 relief ordinance: Sindh's share in tax collection cut by Rs 233 billion: Murad

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the share of the province from the federal divisible pool has been cut from Rs835 billion to Rs602 billion, which means a shortfall of Rs233 billion.

This is due to the fact that the FBR had set a collection target of Rs5.5 trillion but now they were expecting a Rs3.9 trillion collection.

"This is a very serious situation. Now a new strategy is to be adopted to make the ends meet in terms of payment of salaries, incurring of the growing health expenditure bill as well as non-development expenditures."

This he said while briefing the cabinet on the fiscal position of the province. The provincial cabinet meeting was attended by all the ministers, advisors, the chief secretary, the chairman of P&D, PSCM, the secretaries of finance, forest, food, agriculture and law.

The chief minister, who was assisted by Secretary of Finance Hassan Naqvi, said that the FBR at the beginning of the financial year 2019-20 had estimated a collection of Rs5.5 trillion against which the share of the provincial government (FBR plus straight transfers) had to be Rs835 billion.

Murad Ali Shah said that under federal transfers (income tax, wealth tax etc.) based on FBR collection, the Sindh government was promised to be provided with Rs716 billion up to June 30, but now the amount to be transferred was expected to be Rs534 billion.

He said that due to the present financial position he had decided to cut the non-development expenditures by Rs170 billion.

"Our non-development expenditures are estimated to be Rs870 billion out of which I have decided to cut Rs170 billon," he said.

Talking about the Annual Development Programme, the chief minister said that it had also been cut down from Rs228 billion to only Rs93 billion this year.

Briefing the cabinet on the coronavirus situation, the chief minister said that it was spreading throughout the length and breadth of the province.

"Right from Karachi to Kashmore and Thar, positive cases are emerging which is not a good sign," he said.

Syed Murad Ali Shah told the cabinet that 341 more cases emerged in the province while four more patients died, taking the death toll from the coronavirus to 85 which was 1.7 percent of the total number of patients.

The chief minister said that out of 341 new cases 269 belonged to Karachi.

He said that despite serious efforts people living in the slums of Karachi were not observing social distancing.

DRAFT OF COVID-19

RELIEF ORDINANCE

The Sindh government through the law department has proposed enforcement of an ordinance to mitigate the challenges emanating from the province-wide lockdown and to adopt all the necessary measures to help respond to the coronavirus victims by providing them relief.

The draft, the Sindh COVID-19 Emergency Relief Ordinance 2020, would provide prevention from eviction from private and public sector rented properties for the time being, giving an equal relief to domestic residential and commercial tenants, employees and daily-wage workers; extending deadlines set on the payment of school fees, rent and utility charges, conduct of trial or indictment and extension of period for performance of duties by the court or an office.

No educational institution shall charge more than 80 percent of the total monthly fees.

No employee or worker shall be laid off, terminated or removed, and the employee shall be paid salary by the employers. The salary amount and the deduction, if necessary, is given in schedule-I of the ordinance.

All utility providers falling within the territorial jurisdiction of the government shall provide concession (schedule-II of the ordinance) in the utility services to all domestic, residential and commercial consumers.

The landlord shall defer or suspend recovery of the rent of the premises for payable amount as indicated in schedule-III provided that the same shall not apply in case where the owner is a widow, a physically-challenged person or a senior citizen.

The government may provide exemption in the provincial taxes, duties, fees, cess, levies and charges.

In case of non-compliance of the ordinance different penalties have been prescribed.

WHEAT PROCUREMENT

The cabinet was told that a target of procurement of 1.4 million tons of wheat at the rate of Rs1,400 per 40-kg bag had been started. The department has achieved 33.55 percent target by procuring 469,673 tons of wheat.

It was pointed out that the condition of presenting land documents such as the pass book, Form-7 and verification of documents by local councils and Mukhtiarkars were causing problems in the procurement process.

The cabinet, on the request of Food Minister Hari Ram, waived off the conditions imposed on procurement of wheat from the growers.

The chief minister directed the food department to achieve the target and even exceed it if they could.

DESERT LOCUST

The chief minister said he had reports that the locust swarm attacks on the standing crops would multiply in the next cropping year.

"Just after the coronavirus the locus swarm attacks would be another disaster," he said.

Minister Agriculture Ismail Rahu and Secretary Agriculture Raheem Soomro briefed the cabinet on the measures taken to deal with the threat from locust.

The provincial government released Rs335.095 million to the agriculture department to spray the crops against which the department utilized Rs181.638 million on the purchase of 22 (spray) vehicles, 300 solo power sprayers, 1000 hand sprayers,50,000 Emulsifiable Concentrate (EC) to combat the locust issue. Still Rs153.457 million was available with the department.

The agriculture department constituted 57 teams at district and taluka level and sprayed the crops.

The cabinet urged the federal government to purchase or hire six helicopters for spraying in the deserts of Sindh and Balochistan otherwise it would wreak havoc with the next crop. The locust has settled in the deserts of Sindh and with the start of the monsoon it would start breeding.