Federal ministers should first understand the benefits of 18th Amendment: Sharjeel

KARACHI: The ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Monday hit back at the PML-N-led federal government over recent criticism of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, with Sindh Senior Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon calling the remarks by federal ministers “extremely sad”.

Speaking during the Sindh Assembly session, Sharjeel criticised Federal Ministers Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Asif and Mustafa Kamal for questioning the amendment and provincial autonomy. He said the 18th Amendment had made provinces autonomous and enabled them to improve their performance in health, education, energy and other sectors.

“The federal ministers should first see the benefits of the 18th Amendment and the performance of the provinces before speaking against it,” he said and pointed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), saying it had previously been under the federal government but was now providing treatment to people from across the country. He said the same applied to the Indus Hospital and other health facilities in Sindh.

“All this has been made possible because of the 18th Amendment,” he said that Sindh’s progress was not limited to health. More than 3,500 megawatts of electricity was now being generated from Thar, he said, adding that the power was being supplied to the national grid and was benefiting the whole country rather than Sindh alone.

He said the province had also established universities and modern healthcare facilities in cities such as Sukkur and had made progress in infrastructure, education and other sectors after the amendment. The provincial minister challenged the federal ministers to bring their objections to parliament if they had any serious reservations about provincial powers.

“Come to parliament and talk about it,” he said, addressing Mustafa Kamal, Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Asif and others. He said Sindh Assembly members were ready to respond to their arguments with constitutional, legal and statistical evidence.

“You can sit before the media or at public gatherings and make statements, but if you really have an argument and a position, come to the assembly and talk,” he said that the federal ministers should first go to the people, contest elections and win their votes before speaking about the decisions of the people. “People sitting on a charitable or artificial mandate cannot decide the nation’s future,” Sharjeel said.

During the proceedings, Jamaat-e-Islami lawmaker Muhammad Farooq raised the issue of Pakistani citizens who, he said, had been held by Somali pirates for four and a half months. He urged the federal government to take immediate steps to secure their release. He also said police had detained people protesting over the issue on Monday.

The session, chaired by Speaker Syed Awais Qadir Shah, began with the speaker expressing anger over the absence of lawmakers. He said members often asked questions but were not present when those questions came up for discussion. The question hour on Monday concerned public health engineering. “The minister has come prepared, but the members are absent,” the speaker said.

No member asked a supplementary question during the question hour, which was then concluded. MQM lawmaker Amir Siddiqui later moved a resolution on the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sindh. The resolution called for the establishment of a commission to examine the issue and recommend measures to control it.

Provincial Minister Saeed Ghani opposed the resolution, saying the government had already taken steps on the matter and had established an endowment fund. He asked Siddiqui to withdraw the resolution, but the house rejected it after a debate. Another MQM lawmaker, Qurrat-ul-Ain, moved a resolution calling for streetlights to be installed along all highways. Sharjeel said national highways were under federal government control and asked her to have her party’s members raise the matter in the National Assembly.

The issue of electricity also came up during the sitting, with Speaker expressing concern over the power crisis and load-shedding in Sindh. He directed that the matter be taken up with the federal government and that a letter be written to it. “The federal government only talks against Sindh,” he said. The speaker also directed the relevant assembly committee to summon the heads of power companies to discuss the electricity crisis. The session was later adjourned until Tuesday afternoon.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026