Daily Times

The arrest of Sharjeel Inam Memon, former provincial information minister Sindh by NAB after his pre-arrest bail was rejected by Sindh High Court in a highly dramatic fashion. The dejected Sharjeel kept sitting in the court for several hours after his bail was rejected to avoid being apprehended. However the NAB team with the assistance from Rangers personnel took him into custody the moment he left court premises.

This was despite the fact he was being thickly flanked by his supporters. He is accused of giving advertisement awards to television and FM channels at exorbitant rates during his ministerial stint causing losses of around five billion rupees to the public exchequer. The PPP feels a sense of foreboding regarding this development. Sharjeel’s fate depends on the strength of the case built by the prosecution. Earlier, Asim Hussain could not be awarded a punitive sentence despite being dragged door to door in the courts for over a year. It is the court which gets to decide whether accusations carry incriminating weight or not. But the reality is that Sindh has been badly governed. Favouritism and Jiala culture have rendered the institutions weak and unassertive against proliferating anomalies. There is wide spread cynicism found in people due to continual maladministration in Sindh.

Interior Sindh is rife with feudal influence. Being legislators, feudals exercise much sway over the administrative machinery which is only appointed with their consent. Thus local bureaucracy finds no reason for not falling in line

Sindh is a feudal dominated province where feudals, tribal Saradrs and landlords have been exercising greater sway than government institutes. Absence of dependable alternative political forces makes it the Hobson’s choice for the people to repeatedly return PPP nominees to assemblies. Recent move to forge a Grand Political Alliance (GDA) being spearheaded by Peer Pagaro and erstwhile leaguers Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, Syed Ghous Ali Shah and estranged fellow of PPP Dr Zulfikar Mirza, is in its nascent stage. GDA is to challenge PPP in next general elections.

The party has already lost much of its space in KPK and Punjab due to its lackluster performance in its last government and unpopular stature of party co-chairman. Electorally party now stands restricted to Sindh only. People are fast losing the last shred of sympathy factor for Bhuttos hitherto they held. Thanks to poor governance. Recently few videos surfaced in social media showing some PPP legislators disparagingly addressing voters of their respective constituencies and belittling their vote weight.

In these videos voters are intimidated and asked to vote for the party. Long absence of alternative political force in Sindh has generated this audacity in them. Several months back reports appeared in a section of media revealed that a labourer in district Naushahro feroz was made to hold a Wadera’s shoe in his mouth as a punishment after his donkey cart touched his limousine on a road. ‘Arrogance’ is perhaps too small a term to aptly describe their audaciousness and insolence.

Interior Sindh is rife with feudal influence. Being legislators, feudals exercise much sway over the administrative machinery which is only appointed with their consent. Thus local bureaucracy finds no reason for not falling in line. PPP has been poorly governing the province for the last about ten years.

Worsening law and order situation in Karachi improved after Rangers was given the policing powers. Provincial government failed to deliver in many areas. During recent years Tharparkar remained the graveyard of new born children and of their mothers and starvation, barring latest rainfall and wave of happiness, has been the fate of Tharis. Failure to provide clean drinking water to people in province is glaring.

The judicial enquiry report prepared by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro badly exposed the inefficiency of government in ensuring provision of clean drinking water. More than ninety percent of surface and subsoil water is unclean due to multiple reasons. In a recent report secretary education disclosed that out of 41769 schools in 29 districts of province (with 4.1 million enrolment) 23730 schools are without potable water whereas 18039 are not having clean drinking water.

Shortage of irrigation water, skyrocketing cost of agriculture inputs and inaccessibility to markets for sale of agriculture produce are some of the major woes of farmer. Karo Kari, a social ill got proliferating thrust due to laxity on part of local police as such incidents are subsequently settled in Jirgas by the area feudal lord. And Jirga boosts his feudalistic stature. Absence of merit and institutional non-responsiveness are the factors encouraging the never ending tribal feuds.

Education in province is in doldrums mainly marred with bogus appointments of school teachers, ghost schools, and absenteeism etc. There is growing perception that teachers are recruited in schools with a view to use their services during election duties to favour certain candidates. Four secretaries have been changed in about two years period in education department. Thus education, one of the major agents of change in a society stands sabotaged. Besides, massive corruption is reported in award of contracts of development schemes throughout province. Be it a school or hospital building or roads work political considerations are preferred over the merit while awarding the contract.

Resultantly, the quality of construction work is compromised. Municipal services are missing although towns’ municipal administration has sufficient funds to provide basic civic amenities and services in their respective jurisdictions. TMOs (Town Municipal Officers) are either close relatives of the politicians or politically appointed through under hand deals.

Recruitments in government departments are mainly made in violation of the rules and formalities. Recent verdict of Supreme Court revoking the combined competitive examination conducted by Sindh Public Services Commission (SPSC) due to serious anomalies observed in conduct of examination and in the appointment of SPSC chairman and its few members in relaxation of rules.

Besides, deputationists were handed over different departments not keeping compatibility with their qualification and experience. Many such employees had to be repatriated to their departments after apex court orders. Lately, Sindh government in compliance of another order of apex court ditheringly went ahead and removed close to three hundred government officials from service who surrendered looted money under the plea bargain of NAB.

Many influential officials are yet to be removed, though. Good governance emanates from honestly administered institutions and departments but here the honesty has unfortunately become a rare commodity.

The writer is freelance contributor. He blogs at https://malibaloch.wordpress.com/and can be reached on twitter @M_Abaloch

Published in Daily Times, October 29^th 2017.