The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has started contacting other political parties for a multi-party conference (MPC) in Karachi in the coming weeks to address a number of issues, including safeguarding 18th Amendment from an alleged conspiracy against provincial autonomy, administrative changes the National Finance Commission (NFC) and the government’s response towards coronavirus outbreak and locust attack, a local news outlet reported on Sunday.
The party has already contacted leaders from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Awami National Party (ANP) and will send formal invitations to leaders from political and nationalist parties in Sindh.
Earlier, PPP Sindh President Nisar Khuhro said that the objective of the MPC would be to highlight the inadequate response of the federal government to the locust attack, among other issues.
He also lashed out at the federal government for its proposed administrative changes to the NFC.
“The federal government is unable to tolerate the fact that the provinces receive more in the NFC than the Centre,” he said. “The Centre wants to weaken the provinces financially by reducing their NFC share,” he alleged.
He said that the Sindh government will never accept any NFC award that will end up reducing its financial share, arguing that the 18th amendment mandated that provincial shares in the NFC award can never be reduced.
“We reject the autocratic thinking of the prime minister in this regard,” he said.
Khuhro said that it was unfortunate that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government was constantly undermining the provincial governments. He said that the Centre must realise that only a satisfied provincial unit can lead to a satisfied federal unit.
He demanded that the provincial share of the NFC award be increased from 57 per cent to 60 per cent immediately. “The provincial governments have not received a penny in international aid,” Khuhro said.
He alleged that the federal government was ignoring the pleas of the Sindh government on the locust issue “on purpose”. “Locusts continue to wreak havoc on our crops in Sindh but the Centre is refusing to help us in our time of need,” Khuhro said.
“We will discuss all these issues during the conference,” he concluded.
On the other hand, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz, while responding to the PPP’s announcement, said that party’s decision to convene the MPC was a “distraction”.
“Bilawal disappears for months at a time. But when we start talking about accountability, he comes out of hiding and starts distracting us. This multi-party conference is also a distraction,” Faraz said.
The information minister claimed that the federal government had assisted the Sindh government with a number of things, including the locust attack. “If there’s a problem in Sindh, it’s because of his [Chief Minister Murad] bad governance,” he said.
