Shibli Faraz for greater national unity to tackle post COVID-19 challenges

ISLAMABAD, May 14 (APP):Leader of the House in Senate and Minister for Information and Broadcasting Syed Shibli Faraz Thursday underlined the need for exhibiting greater national unity by all the political parties to tackle the coronavirus threat, especially the post COVID-19 challenges.
“At this time, we need national unity so that the coming challenges, which will be harder than of today’s, could be tackled effectively,” he said while participating in the debate on the virus containment strategy in the Senate.
The minister asked the opposition not to indulge in the blame game and avoid political point-scoring at the critical juncture. It had requisitioned the parliamentary sessions and its leaders must have attended the same instead of making the health issue as an excuse.
He asked five questions from the opposition that what was its strategy regarding COVID-19, whether it wanted a nationwide curfew, whether it wanted closure of mosques across the country, and as to what the government do till the anti-corona vaccine was formed. Where was the opposition, which had requisitioned the parliamentary sessions, he posed the last question.
From the day one, Shibli Faraz said, the government had devised an effective strategy to contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), despite having limited resources that worked and yielded the required results.
As compared to resourceful countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy, Pakistan had succeeded in containing the virus to a great extent as it limited the number of patients due to the preventive measures introduced by the government, he added.
The minister said there were over 1.4 million confirmed positive cases and 100,000 deaths in the United States that had gross domestic product of around $3 trillion, while the United Kingdom and Italy had also over 200,000 COVID-19 cases and 30,000 deaths.
Whereas in Pakistan, he said, the number of confirmed cases were just 30,000 and deaths below 1,000, which reflected the effectiveness of the government policy towards controlling the virus spread.
Shibli Faraz said despite having limited resources and lack of healthcare facilities, Pakistan was facing the situation with courage and managed to contain the virus. The government devised the COVID-19 strategy in consultation with all the federating units, keeping in view the hardships of daily wagers, vendors and shopkeepers, besides enforcing necessary preventive measures to stop the virus spread.
He said the government announced a historic financial assistance package of Rs1.2 trillion to help those people, who had affected due to economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.
Under its Ehsaas Emergency Programme, he said, the government had so far distributed around Rs100 billion among 65,000 to 80,000 families so that they could lead their lives in a respectable way.
Referring to a television programme, the minister said a lady was narrating that her husband committed suicide after he could not feed his children due to the evolving situation of the deadly virus and slowdown of the economic activities.
“There are a number of such tales,” he said, adding the government was focusing on safeguarding the masses from both the coronavirus as well as the hunger.
He said the government believed in transparent and equal distribution of financial assistance, adding the Sindh government had so far been given over Rs 31 billion under the programme.
Shibli Faraz said the government had set up the forums of National Coordination Committee (NCC) and National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), where all the provinces, including the Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan had representation.
The forums, he added, were monitoring the COVID-19 situation and distribution of equipment and other relief assistance to the provinces on daily basis, which were being carried out in a judicious manner.
He said imposing a ‘complete lockdown’ was the mindset of elite class that could afford meeting their day to day expenses without any difficulty, but a common man could not afford as they had to manage bread and butter for their families on daily basis.
He said Minister for Planning, Development, Reforms and Special Initiatives Asad Umer and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar had appeared before the commission probing the sugar and flour crisis, as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government believed in supremacy of the law. He regretted that some opposition leaders were avoiding appearing before the commission.