Asad Umar slights Sindh CM letter, affirms commitment to Sindh’s development

Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar slights Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah over his letter complaining about supposed partiality in Sindh’s development and declared the federal government’s commitment to expansion projects in Sindh.

The chief minister had urged Prime Minister Imran Khan in a harshly worded letter on Saturday to reassess the projected Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), calling it uneven as it was “detrimental” to the interests of the people in Sindh. He had claimed that the province was treated with “abject bias” since the ruling PTI government had come to power.

The federal minister responded to the letter through a video address that he would’ve gotten his answers if he had waited for tomorrow’s (Monday) National Economic Council (NEC) meeting “but maybe he isn’t interested in the answers and wanted to give a political statement”.

Umar said if the provisions are set aside for federal projects in Sindh in the last three years of the previous government were equated to the obligatory government’s three years then there was an increase of more than 32 percent.

“The amount set aside for projects in Sindh in PSDP 2021-22, which will be presented before the NEC tomorrow and hopefully approved, is a record amount. Never before in Pakistan’s annual development Programme have so many projects been set for Sindh.”

“Chief Minister Sahab you are definitely [a part of] Sindh’s government but you are not Sindh’s masses and we have to spend money on Sindh’s people, not the government,” Asad Umar slights Sindh CM.

Umar further claimed that previously, funds sent to the provincial government had instead been sidetracked to other commitments such as hoarding properties and assets instead of being spent on Sindh and the people of the province were aware of this.