• Research finds Rs48.8bn allocated for climate-related depts in 16 years, but overall expenditure was just Rs20.2bn
• Rs40m earmarked for climate change directorate but nothing was spent

KARACHI: Despite being battered by heatwaves, heavy rains and unprecedented floods, the province of Sindh has spent less than half of its total ‘climate budget’ in the last 16 year that saw a consistent rule of the Pakistan Peoples Party, it emerged on Monday.

The Climate Action Centre (CAC) in collaboration with The Citizenry organised on Monday an interesting and well-timed discussion — ‘Big Claims, Small Expenditures’ — on Sindh’s climate budget.

Researchers from The Citizenry looked at budget allocations and expenditures for and of the province’s climate-related departments —Environment, Climate Change, Coastal Department; Directorate of Climate Change; Forest and Wildlife; Alternative Energy, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and Rehabilitation Department — in the last 16 years to find that less than half of what was allocated was spent on development, etc.

The total allocation of Sindh’s climate budget during this time was Rs48.8 billion and the total expenditure was Rs20.2bn, bringing their performance status to 41 per cent.

Looking at Sindh Environment sub-department performance status, against the total Rs3.419bn allocations in 16 years, the department’s expenditure was a mere Rs336.56 million. That is less than 10pc.

Looking at Sindh Climate Change sub-department/Directorate of Climate Change (DoCC) performance status, it has been allocated Rs40m and there has been zero expenditure so far. It was just created and that’s it. It did nothing.

Sindh Coastal Development sub-department performance status had sporadic allocation, as well as expenditure. In the past 16 years, the Sindh government allocated a total of Rs10.069bn for its coastal development, with an expenditure of Rs4.421bn and a performance of 43.91pc.

Sindh Forest sub-department performance status showed a total of Rs9.894bn (77pc) was spent on forest from 2008 to 2022-23 against a total allocation of Rs12.789bn.

The Sindh Wildlife sub-department had a total allocation of Rs1.816bn from 2008-9 to 2023-24. The total expenditure, meanwhile, was Rs766.126m from 2007 to 2022-23. This means only 42pc of the total allocations made in the 16 years was actually spent.

In 2013-14, Sindh Alternative Energy sub-department’s allocation was Rs173m, but its expenditure was nil.

Coming to the performance status of Sindh PDMA, in a span of 11 years, only the PDMA has had a lion’s share in allocation, among the entire climate-related departments at Rs20.5bn. In terms of expenditure, less than one-fourth (23.33pc) of the total allocated amount by the PDMA had been spent, which is Rs4.78189bn.

According to Sadya Siddiqui, researcher and co-founder of The Citizenry, it is timely to analyse the Sindh budget and see how much it addresses climate.

She said that when The Citizenry spoke to PPP’s former environment minister Ismail Rahoo, asking him about the low expenditure in the environment sub-department, he acknowledged that there had been certain gaps at their end.

“The minister, who was in the government till the caretaker one came to office last August, said that the department was relatively new and that they were gradually increasing its allocation. He called it more of a coalition department, while adding that its purpose was to ensure that the forest, wildlife and local government departments were working in line with the climate change policy as they also tend to advise those departments,” Ms Siddiqui shared.

She also said that the Director General of DoCC Akhlaq Qureshi told them that the role of DoCC was mostly policy-oriented. “At the provincial level, he said, the directorate will coordinate with the federal ministry of climate change,” she added.

The project manager of the research, Oonib Azam, who is also a journalist, said that their purpose for doing such research was that they wanted to see what laws and policies impacted citizens’ lives and research and write stories about them. He said that they realised that government officials had lots of documents, which they referred to as policy. “But technically, policy is what your action is, not your documented plans and list of allocations for them,” he pointed out.

Finance Director from PDMA Shah Hussain and Chief Conservator of Forests Sindh Riaz A. Wagan also spoke.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2024