Karachi:
The Sindh government has expressed strong reservations about what calls the federal government of the key development projects in the province, particularly the Hyderabad-Sukkur highway, in the newly announced federal budget of RS17.6 billion for fiscal year 2025-26.
The senior minister of Sindh, Sharjeel Inam Memon, said the Hyderabad-Sukkur highway is not only critical for Sindh but for the whole country due to its central role in national trade routes.
“The port of Karachi manages imports and exports for all Pakistan. There is no viable alternative route to this highway,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
Memon, who also serves as the Provincial Information Minister, said that Sindh’s prime minister Murad Ali Shah had repeatedly reminded the federal government the importance of the project and had even issued formal letters.
He said that the federal ministers had recently assured the provincial government that the funds would be assigned in the budget. However, Memon criticized the assignment as insufficient.
“The construction of the Hyderabad-Sukkur highway is the responsibility of the federal government, not from the government of Sindh,” he said. “They told us that the road would begin soon and will be completed quickly, but with the amount of assigned token, this project cannot start immediately or end in time.”
Calling “symbolic money,” Memon said such large -scale projects require substantial and sustained financing for two or three years. He argued that at least 30 to 40 percent of the total cost should have been assigned, as is the case with other national projects.
“By assigning only RS15 billion, no justice has been done to the project or has been considered national interests,” he said. He also raised concerns about the sub-financing of the K-IV water supply project, describing the assignments for both initiatives as “very inadequate.”
The Popular Party of Pakistan (PPP), he said, is taking these budgetary decisions and plans to review the budget in detail. Memon said the PPP had presented formal proposals to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and urged the federal government to reduce unnecessary expenses.
“When income does not increase, it becomes essential to control the expense,” he said. “The established budgetary objectives were not met. The FBR failed to meet its income objectives.”
He warned that, unless the Government adopts a smarter approach to expenses and reins in financial bad management, the economic system would remain under pressure and fiscal policy would not be sustainable.
