Sindh Assembly approved province’s Rs 1.477 trillion budget for FY2021-22 on Friday (today).
The house met with Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani in chair amid severe obstruction from the opposition benches over budget.
As CM Murad Ali Shah – who also holds the portfolio of finance minister, stood up to address the house on final budget session, the joint opposition resorted to slogans and hooting, essentially creating a ruckus in order to prevent the budget from being approved.
However, the opposition parties merely resorted to ‘lip service’ as far as their budget disapproval is concerned, as they failed to move even a single cut-motion in the house.
Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani noted that despite the fact that leader of opposition was allowed to speak on the budget, he chose to protest interrupt the budget session.
Read More: Sindh’s Rs 1.4 Trillion FY2021-22 Budget
In this situation, we have no other option but to go ahead and pass the budget, said Durrani.
PTI, MQM-P leaders including Haleem Adil Sheikh, Firdous Shamim Naqvi and Kunwar Naveed Jamil accused PPP of ignoring the province’s opposition parties.
Notable features of Sindh’s FY2021-22 budget include minimum wage which has been fixed at Rs 25,000; a 20% increase in government employees’ salaries and a 41% increase in province’s development budget to be fixed at Rs 329 billion.
Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani had held meeting with the opposition and gave the two-day time for debate on budget and make a cut motion, said Sindh Information Minister Nasir Hussain Shah.
