ISLAMABAD, Jun 20 (APP):Minister for Communications and Postal Services Murad Saeed Saturday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan did not believe in doing politics over petty issues but serving the masses as he was working on
a mission to end poverty from the country.
In a media talk in response to the press conference of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Murad Saeed called for rising above political point scoring and making collective efforts to root out poverty and hunger from the country.
He said the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf government had increased Sindh share in Ehsaas programme by 10 per cent due to prevalent poverty there.
He said that the PPP leadership should be happy that more amount would be given to the poor from Sindh.
He said the prime minister’s visit to Larkana, the home constituency of Bilawal was meant to distribute cheques of financial assistance to the vulnerable segments of the society under Ehsaas programme.
He said that last year, Rs 192 billion were allocated for Ehsaas programme
whereas this year the amount had been raised to Rs 208 billion.
Moreover, Rs 144 billion more were added in wake of the financial crisis due to the outbreak of coronavirus in the country, Murad Saeed added.
He stated that when corona related lock down started, labourers at
Thar coal mines were facing starvation and Sindh Governor Imran Ismail
arranged financial support for them.
However the provincial government, instead of thanking him acted negatively. Similarly when PTI MNAs from Karachi were given grants by the Federal Government for resolution of water crisis in their respective constituencies, the provincial government took stay from courts.
Murad Saeed reminded that no new tax was imposed in the upcoming
federal budget and Prime Minister Imran Khan gave Pakistan’s history’s
biggest relief package to 16 million vulnerable families. He said that
Sindh government had promised to provide ration to the people, but
every day they had to listen to the “Bhashan”(lecture) of the PPP
leadership. He said Pakistan People’s Party failed to resolve the
grievances being faced by the people of Karachi and Sindh.
He said the politics of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was confined to mere statements.
He said that Rs 5.5 trillion were given to Sindh for improvement of health sector, but the condition of the health infrastructure was so bad that the provincial government could not arrange a ventilator for Dr. Furqan, who caught the virus while fighting the pandemic.
He said there were no medicines and ambulances in hospitals, which was
the proof that Rs 5.5 billion had been misappropriated, adding on
the contrary the PTI government in KPK had built health infrastructure
and in the coming budget 100 per cent population of the province would
be provided Insaf Sehat Card, providing insurance to all families who
could avail up to Rs 720,000 medical cover.
He said that he accepted the challenge of Bilawal for comparison of
heath facilities of Sindh and KPK. He invited Bilawal to come to KPK
and see himself the health infrastructure and he would visit Sindh. He
said such comparison would be beneficial for the people as this would
help improve infrastructure.
He said that perhaps Bilawal had not read the budget document, as the
federal government had allocated Rs 70 billion for corona-related
schemes.
After the 18th amendment, he said that health was provincial subject,
but still the federal government had been providing face masks,
ventilators and other material to the provinces.
Referring to locust attack, Murad Saeed said that Zardari’s plan to
seize more big vehicles instead of spraying the locust-hit areas of
the province. He said that 106 vehicles of Sindh government were
already missing, and now they had made a plan to misuse farmers’
funds for purchase of vehicles for personal use.
He said that there were over 8 million corona cases in the world, 2
million in the United States alone. He said that health
infrastructures of developed nations collapsed against coronavirus
attack. In India before lockdown only 636 confirmed cases existed but
after the lock down easing, confirmed cases had reached 190,000 mark
and 120 million people had lost their jobs which was the proof that
policy of strict lock down was a failure.
He said Prime Minister Imran Khan with his sagacity, saved the
crisis by providing immediate relief to the unemployed in the
lockdown. Moreover, Pakistan relax the restrictions to save the poor
daily-wage workers from starvation.
He said that on the directives of the PM, National Command and
Operation Centre (NCOC) was established which holds daily meetings and
prepares strategy in light of latest data and figures.
He said the Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah who regularly attended the meetings approves the decisions of the NCOC but later issues irresponsible
statements to please PPP top leadership which was unfortunate.
About National Finance Commission award, he said that 100 per cent
share of Sindh had been released and Ministry of Finance issued a
clarification in this regard.
He said that all provinces had promised to give 3 per cent of their share in NFC award for development of erstwhile FATA distircts, but Sindh had not fulfilled its promise.
