Sindh takes exception to fed cabinet's decision on census

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan raising objection to the federal cabinet’s Dec 22 decision of approving the 6th National Census-2017.

He stated, “That in Pursuance of Part II of the Federal Legislative List, Fourth Schedule of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Census Results of 2017 have been pending approval of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) since the year 2017.”

“In this regard, the Summary moved by the Ministry of Statistics, Government of Pakistan dated 09.11.2017 was deliberated upon at the CCI which through its decision dated 13.11.2017 had directed that before compilation of the final results, third party validation of 1% census blocks in each Province should take place.”

Later on November 24, 2011, Murad said the CCI decided to further enhance the sampling proportion from one per cent to five per cent in each province. This decision of third party validation was made in light of the agreement reached by parliamentary parties which led to the passage of 24th constitutional amendment allowing for the 2018 general elections to be held on the basis of provisional census results, he added.

He said the matter of finalising the census results remained pending since March, 2018 but on November 11, the members of the CCI were informed that the federal cabinet has set up a committee headed by Maritime Affairs Minister Ali Haider Zaidi to make recommendations for finalisation of the census results.

“This unilateral decision of the federal cabinet was clearly in negation of the Parliamentary Parties Agreement as well as the earlier decisions made by the CCI,” the Sindh CM pointed out.

“Instead of addressing the concerns of the Provinces and in particular of the Province of Sindh, the Committee submitted its recommendations to the Federal Cabinet without engaging with the Government of Sindh, in direct negation of the earlier decision of CCI.”

“It is most unfortunate that the Federal Cabinet which is headed by you Sir (just like the CCI) approved the recommendations of the Committee on 22.12.2020. It is regrettably stated that the Federal Cabinet failed to adhere to the decision of CCI which speaks volumes of the sanctity that the Federal Government shows to decisions of important Constitutional bodies like the CCI.”