After getting a vote of confidence from Sindh Assembly, the Chief Minister-elect, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, unfolded last week an ambitious and a populist programme that includes the setting up of a Sindh Bank.

The PPP also intends to offer 40,000 new jobs, give land to the landless peasants and provide loans to a targeted 0.6 million small farmers. It also plans to launch a training programme for the youth and to improve health and education services.

But the announcement about setting up of a bank has reminded many of the fate of Provincial Co-operative Bank of Sindh--closed down in 1989-- and the scandals pertaining to infamous Mehran Bank that was finally merged into the National Bank of Pakistan..

‘’The State Bank, time and again, has shown reluctance to give permission, to Sindh government for setting up a bank,’’ disclosed a retired bureaucrat who said official efforts were thus frustrated since the year 2002-03. Later the idea of setting up a micro-finance bank to provide credit at grass roots level in rural and urban areas was floated, but with no outcome. Sindh government argues that there is Bank of Punjab in Lahore, Khyber Bank in Peshawar and hence the justification for a provincial bank in Sindh.

An official said, pension, provident, and social security funds provide small amount of loans in cities and villages and therefore we need to have our own bank. The PPP government too would go with same logic in an environment in which it will also be heading the coalition government at the federal level..

Syed Qaim Ali Shah also plans to provide job opportunities to 40,000 persons in the province. At the same time, his government will review appointments made by the caretaker government. But ‘’the caretaker chief minister withdrew government’s discretionary powers to grant promotion and extension to retired employees, ‘’ one of the ministers in the outgoing cabinet disclosed and said this has clipped chief minister’s power to oblige his cronies in the bureaucracy.

He did not deny that many ad hoc appointments were made by the caretaker chief minister but wondered, how would anyone justify the new 40,000 appointments when those appointed by the previous caretaker government are to be screened. Appointments were also made by the previous government headed by Arbab Rahim in the last days of his term of office. Obviously, all these will come under scrutiny but how would one justify recruitment of a new workforce in the government ?

Syed Qaim Ali Shah did say where and how the 40,000 people will be provided jobs. How many would get regular government jobs and how many will be absorbed in the government sponsored new employment schemes. The PPP manifesto provides for labour-intensive Public Works Programme under which guaranteed employment, of at least one year, will be given to one working member of the poorest 25 per cent families. Under the PPP’s scheme for Literacy and Health Corps, employment guarantee of two years has been promised to all youth completing Intermediate, Graduation and Post-Graduation in a given year.

All the successive governments in Sindh have considered government employment a convenient solution for tackling growing unemployment in the province. No wonder in the last decade or so, the number of employees has swollen from about 225,000 in 1990-91 to about 450,000. More than 40 per cent of Sindh’s annual budget is spent on salaries and pensions. About three years ago, the World Bank found the ratio of employees to population highest in Sindh as compared to all other provinces.

Yet, the delivery of services-education, health, water supply, sanitation, irrigation etc-is worst when compared to other provinces. ‘’Adding a new layer of fat over a bulging bureaucratic machinery will only make it more inert and inefficient’’ is a view of a professional manager who suggests that PPP leadership should work out a transparent method of retirement and recruitment and set criteria for promotion and rewards on the basis of performance and skills.

However, the PPP’s programme to offer 0.2 million acres in kutcha area and non-irrigated land to landless peasants is far more practical and relevant. But for this, the government will have to do a lot of preparatory work. In 1992, the Nawaz Sharif government drew up a programme to carry out development in Sindh’s kutcha area by way of clear demarcation, construction of roads, building of schools, police stations and health units.

The army was given the job to carry out necessary survey work. The idea was to allocate subsistence land holdings to the landless peasants with proper documents so that they could have access to bank credit and would get all inputs. But as army started survey, the leaders of the area issued statements against the programme which had to be abandoned.

Professionals now suggest re-organisation and revamping of the Board of Revenue, computerisation of land ownership record with setting up of a back-up arrangement.

Syed Qaim Ali Shah announced that the reach of bank loans will be extended to 0.6 million small farmers but the move will be meaningful only if the amount goes to the right people and is utilised for right purpose and paid back after giving all benefits to the farmer. How will this be done is expected to be spelt out after the government is settled and the relevant people are engaged for this job. Another PPP leader, Syed Murad Ali Shah said despite a very short time available, the PPP government will engage opposition parties, businessmen and civil society in the budget making for the next year. We do have some idea, as for the last four years the PPP had been holding pre-budget reviews regularly. He was convinced that there is trickle down effect of the economic mismanagement at the centre and in all the provinces, and ‘we will have to assess it in our province.

The Sindh planners have drawn up the province’s contribution in the national gross domestic production (GDP) which needs to be reviewed, scrutinised and redrawn by a team of economists and statisticians in the PPP government as there seems to be many discrepancies. According to these planners, the province’s share in the national GDP has come down to 31.2 per cent in 2006-07 from 32.5 per cent in 2005-06. These planners complain they have no access to data and information of some of the sectors and that has made their task difficult. For example, the banks do not give them figures of credit disbursement in Sindh. The tax authorities do not share information about revenue collection in the province. Information collection about industrial production is primitive, irrelevant and outdated.

The Bureau of Sindh Statistics (BSS) does not have enough infrastructure to collect information about agriculture. Its 42 offices in the province used to provide information about various sectors every month. Now all these offices have been merged with the district government offices and the bureau depends entirely on the line departments.

Managers and business executives say that an independent and professional Bureau of Statistics that has economists, statisticians and analysts can play a vital role in the planning, budget making, development monitoring and assessment of social indicators in the province. Sindh needs to go ahead in this direction.