Sindh govt presents Rs 1144.448 billion budget

KARACHI: Sindh Government on Thursday presented Rs 1144.448 billion tax free budget for the year 2018-19, with Rs 343.9 billion uplift outlay.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who also holds portfolio of Finance Minister, presented the budget in Sindh Assembly amongst the negative slogans by the Opposition members of the assembly.

He requested the House to authorize expenditure only for first quarter of the current financial year from July 1 to September 30, 2018.

Speaker Sindh Assembly Siraj Durrani chaired the session.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his budget speech, said though constitutionally, his government had mandate to approve budget for the next whole financial year, yet it was upholding Pakistan Peoples Party principles of fair play. The party believed that it is the rightful mandate of the upcoming government to set budget priorities for themselves, he said.

Shah said for the second consecutive year, Sindh Government was not proposing any new taxes in the budget. Budget 2018-19 is a tax-free, welfare-oriented and a progressive budget.

He said almost 75 percent of Sindh government's revenue receipts were dependent on Federal Transfers, consisting of shares from federal divisible pool, straight transfers and the grant to offset losses in lieu of abolition of OZT. 'The major chunk comes from divisible pool taxes, which is distributed to the provinces under National Finance Commission award formula.

He said that the decision on 9th NFC award was long awaited. 'The delay is causing huge economic loss to the provinces, especially the province of Sindh because its revenue collection is much higher as compared to other provinces.'

He urged the Federal Government to announce NFC award at the earliest.

He said that only one tax has been devolved to provinces, which is sales tax on services. The collection of sales tax on services when it was with Federal Government, stood at Rs.16 billion in 2010-1.

After devolution the collection figure is Rs.78.66 billion in 2016-17; showing a marked increase in the collection.

He said that during 2017-18, Rs.274.00 billion was allocated in the budget estimates for development which has been revised to Rs.226.00 billion, including Rs.28.00 billion for District ADP schemes.

The departments will complete 714 schemes in the 2017-18 as compared to 536 schemes completed in last financial year 2016-17.

Announcing development budget for 2018-19, Murad Ali Shah said the total development budget outlay for Sindh in 2018-19 would be Rs.343.90 billion. This included Rs 282 billion ADP Rs 252 billion provincial ADP and Rs 30 billion district ADP.

There would be Rs.46.894 billion from foreign projects assistance and Rs.15.02 billion would be provided by Federal Government for PSDP schemes to be executed by Government of Sindh.

He said that the Sindh government has decided to prepare 80 percent of development budget for on-going schemes and leave 20 percent of budget space for new schemes in a block provision in ADP 2018-19.

Murad Shah said the provincial development budget includes Rs.252 billion for ADP 2018-19 out of which Rs.202 billion being 80 percent has been allocated for 2226 on-going schemes, whereas new schemes of all departments would be accommodated under the block provision of Rs.50 billion, being 20 percent of the development budget, earmarked separately as ‘Block Allocation’ for new schemes to be decided by next government for all sectors in ADP 2018-19. In addition, Rs.30.00 billion has been allocated for District ADP 2018-19.

Syed Murad Ali Shah presenting revised estimates for total receipts of province for current financial year 2017-18 said they are Rs 966.6 billion, as against budget estimates of Rs 1028.9 billion. Sindh government is largely dependent on federal transfers which constitute 61 percent of its total revenue.

He said that with the unpredictability of these fiscal transfers from the federal to provincial government, budget preparation becomes cumbersome as the projections of non-development expenditure and development portfolio are largely based on these estimates. Resultantly, provincial development expenditure has to be adjusted to offset the effect.

There is decrease of Rs.28.5 billion in federal transfers in revised estimates 2017-18 as communicated by the federal government, he said and added receipts of Federal PSDP were slashed to Rs.20.4 billion from Rs.27.3 billion; whereas revised Foreign Project Assistance stands at Rs.27.7 billion as against Rs.42.7 billion.

He said that on the provincial revenue collection side, we were largely able to achieve our provincial tax receipt targets.

He proudly said that the Sindh Revenue Board and Excise, Taxation & Narcotics Control Department were able to achieve their tax targets. The provincial tax and non-tax receipt is revised to Rs.197 billion against an estimated target of Rs.199.6 billion.

Talking about expenditure side, the chief minister said that the budget has been revised from Rs.1043.2 billion to Rs.987.8 billion. The current expenditure has been revised to Rs.685.2 billion from Rs.666.5 billion. He added the increase is primarily because of increase in the pension of retired employees, and grants to various sectors of the economy.

The chief minister said that the development expenditure has been revised at Rs.282.4 billion against an estimated allocation of Rs.344 billion. “It is worth mentioning that current financial year recorded the highest utilization of development funds, till yesterday, the development expenditure was recorded as Rs.143.3 billion,” he said.

About the budget estimates 2018-19, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said the total receipts of province for financial year 2017-18 were estimated at Rs.1028.9 billion. The estimated expenditure was Rs.1043.2 billion.

He went on saying that for the next financial year the budget estimates of receipts is Rs.1124 billion which was 8.5 percent higher than for current financial year.

Receipts from Federal Government on account of revenue assignment, straight transfer and grants are estimated at Rs.665.1 billion. Receipts from Federal Government are 59.2 percent of the total receipts of the province.

Receipts of Federal PSDP are estimated at Rs.15 billion. Receipts on account of Foreign Project Assistance, budgetary support loans and grants are estimated at Rs.46.9 billion. Receipts from provincial own sources including tax and non-tax receipts are estimated at Rs.243 billion, he said.

Talking about expenditure side, Murad Ali Shah said that the outlay of budget was estimated at Rs.1144.2 billion as against budget estimate of Rs.1043.2 billion of 2017-18, reflecting an increase of 8.8 percent. 'The current expenditure including Current Revenue Expenditure of Rs.773.2 billion and Current Capital Expenditure of Rs.27.1 billion stands at Rs.800.3 billion,' he said.

He said for the next financial year Current Expenditure constitutes 69.9 percent of the total provincial budget. The estimates of development expenditure for Financial Year 2018-19 are pitched at Rs.344 billion. “Sindh has witnessed a decade of sustainable development.

We are committed to take Sindh to new heights of progress and prosperity,” he said.

About the law and order, Sindh Chief Minister said that untiring efforts of law enforcement agencies and support of our brave people, we have been able to restore peace not only in Karachi, but to the entire province.

He added that no doubt, street crime has not come to grip as effectively as it should have, however, he was hopeful this menace would also be eliminated with the passage of time.

He said Rs.1000 million were allocated for disbursement as compensation to the families of Shuhda and injured personnel, recruitment of 10,000 police personnel made through NTS, Rs.159 million provided for training of newly recruited Police Constables at Pak Army Training Centers, Investigation capability is being enhanced by establishing a state of the art forensic lab besides DNA lab and crime record database, for the first time in the history of Sindh Police, all driving license branches throughout the province have been centrally connected and driving licenses are being delivered to the applicants at their doorstep through courier service, Public-Police interface is being strengthened by establishing facilitation centers at each Divisional Headquarter for providing people-friendly one window police services to citizens, including the registration of FIRs, lodging of miscellaneous complaints, etc.

He announced a large number of schemes in the following areas which include revamping of CTD and creating a professional & dedicated force styled as Counter Terrorism Force (CTF); enhancing compensation for Shaheed / Injured at par with other provinces and allocating Rs.2 billion compensation package.

Creating 2782 posts for security of CPEC related projects; 2,959 posts for Training, Crime Branch, Traffic and Technical Training Sindh for enhancement of capacity of these units; and 11,259 posts of different ranks for Sindh Police.

Allocating funds worth Rs.5.712 billion in SNE (New) 2018-19 for purchase of Physical Assets; Rs.5.348 billion for Sindh Police; Rs.306.855 million for Pakistan Rangers (Sindh); and Rs.14.865 million for Frontier Constabulary (Sindh); and Rs.42.996 million for Home Department and its attached offices.

He said that the measures which were out of Sindh governments, mandate, therefore they have been taken up with Federal Government for further improvement in overall crime control.

He gave the example of setting up an integrated national database comprising CNIC, driving license, vehicle number plate, arms license, SIM etc, making unified Criminal record database at national level with access available to all the law enforcement agencies and developing a Mechanism for effective monitoring of social media including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc.