KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Wednesday that the Sindh government would challenge an amendment in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), better known as the NAB law, through which the federal government had tried to encroach upon provinces’ jurisdiction by assigning ‘C class’ jail facilities to any accused facing a Rs50 million embezzlement case.

“This is purely the matter of jail manual and the federal government is not authorised to make such an amendment; therefore the provincial government has decided to challenge it in the court of law,” he said while talking to the media after handing over 20 suction and high-pressure jetting machines to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board.

Mr Shah said that the federal government inserted Section 10 in the NAO to assign C class in prison to a suspect/accused of embezzling funds of Rs50m and beyond.

Centre ‘against’ 18th Amendment

To a question, he said that the federal government had already made it clear many times that it did not consider the 18th Amendment as a divine book which could not be amended. “I have told them that you can amend it just for devolving more powers to the provinces but you [federal govt] will not be allowed to scrap it,” he added.

When asked about the K-IV water supply project, he said that the Pakistan Peoples Party government was accused of changing the alignment of the project, but now it had been proved that the provincial government had nothing to do with the alignment.

“The project will definitely see the light of the day for which the provincial government is working on K-IV with the Frontier Works Organisation and very soon work will be started there,” he said and added that the S-III project would also be completed.

He said that the federal government had destroyed the economy of the country as prices of vegetables had gone up but the finance minister was so ignorant of the ground realities that he claimed that tomatoes were available in the market for Rs17 per kilogram.

To another question, he quoted Article 105 of the Constitution and said that the governor was bound to work on the advice of the chief minister. “This is very simple and there will be no differences if everyone follows his constitutional role,” he added.

Earlier, he handed over the keys of 20 machine-mounted vehicles, including 10 suction and 10 high-pressure jetting machines, to the KWSB chief.

He said his government was working to improve water and sewerage system in the city. The 20 vehicles were purchased at a cost of Rs900m. Another 37 old suction and jetting machines were being overhauled.

He said that a new pumping station to provide 100 million gallons daily of water to the city had almost been completed at a cost of Rs1.63 billion and it would be inaugurated next month.

He said that a 24-inch-diametre pipeline was being laid from Habib Bank Chowrangi to provide water to Baldia Town.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2019