Rs2 trillion cut in Sindh's share to drastically affect uplift sector, says Khuhro.

HYDERABAD -- Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh chapter president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has said that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government has deducted Rs2 trillion from Sindh's share in the federal budget 2020-21, which would drastically affect the development sector.

He sarcastically said Prime Minister Imran Khan should have visited Sindh earlier at least for witnessing the 'poor performance of Sindh government'.

Speaking at a press conference at the residence of district PPP president Sagheer Qureshi on Tuesday, he said the federal government presented a deficit budget of multi-trillion rupees in which provincial shares were cut. The budget showed failure of the federal government which reduced development portfolio of up to Rs800 billion in its first year and now it was up to Rs560bn.

He said the Sindh government had allocated Rs200bn for development programmes in the 2019-20 budget, but due to the cut in its share in the federal budget, the provincial government would certainly reduce the size of its development portfolio. He said that it was the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) that collected all kinds of taxes and the prime minister had boasted about that very FBR initially.

He said the PM had claimed that he would make sure that the FBR collected Rs7,000bn of taxes, which had unnerved the FBR management. He said the federal government even announced a tax amnesty scheme to restore confidence among taxpayers, but the final report of the amnesty scheme indicated only eight per cent increase in revenue collection, which meant that the scheme met with failure.

He said the federal government might attribute low revenue collection to the coronavirus situation, but fact of the matter was that till February, no such situation had existed. The coronavirus issue affected the country in March, whereas income tax returns continued to be submitted to date, he said.

He said that no final...