ISLAMABAD: Legislators in the Senate Monday strongly disputed the government figures regarding the coronavirus cases and fatalities, claiming these were in total contrast to the ground realities.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi were urged to be present in the House for fruitful proposals from the legislators on how to deal with the challenge of bringing back large number of overseas Pakistanis, particularly those in the Middle Eastern countries.
The sitting, which started at 4pm continued till 8:12pm despite the fact that Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani had announced Friday that no sitting will be held beyond maximum two hours because of the corona factor and this was reiterated in the House Business Advisory Committee meeting as well Monday.
The government was accused of being not competent to handle the virus challenge as well as locust attack and feared serious repercussions of the same in the time to come.
JI Senator Sirajul Haq said that those, who had been sending their precious remittances to Pakistan were today begging to return to their country after having been laid off; many were ill and in desperate need of support. He cautioned that a situation was developing, which might led to these frustrated overseas Pakistanis to torch Pakistani embassies in the Arab countries, as these were dumb and deaf and hence of no help to them.
He drew a parallel how George Floyd was killed and how in great anguish were the people of Pakistan in the given system. He also mentioned people were searching beds for their corona-hit loved ones in government hospitals as well as ventilators.
PML-N Senator Musadik Malik presented a bleak picture of the virus-related issues and asked when would the government say, now they had enough number of cases and deaths, as it had been often saying Pakistan had far lesser virus cases and deaths as compared to Italy, US and other countries. He cautioned that the cases were multiplying at an alarming rate and these would be about 250,000 cases by early July. He claimed that the death rate per million in Pakistan was double (nine) than in India (four) and more than in other South Asian countries, including Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Senator Malik revealed that the state run TV had shown a map with Azad Kashmir being part of India and wondered from where this map was taken, as such maps did not exist in Pakistan.
Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani referred what he called this sensitive matter to the House standing committee concerned.
PPP Senator Sherry Rehman said that people were dying because of the irresponsible behaviour shown by the federal government and Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was still talking about how he was against a lockdown. “This is the height of stubbornness and insensitivity. Unfortunately, crucial time has passed and now the follies of this government are going to cost us heavily,” she alleged. She said that, “easing down the lockdown so the poor are not affected was just an excuse to hide behind. The lockdown has hurt the poor when the government is only concerned about big businesses is self-explanatory. The government was consistently anti-lockdown and gave in to the demands of power lobbies. It never had a pro-poor strategy”.
The senator said, “Justifying opening up by saying rich countries are also opening up is ridiculous when they actually took the lockdown seriously and managed to flatten their curve. The only reason that Pakistan did well initially and did not suffer like America was because Sindh government took it seriously and came up with timely effective measures. Other provinces followed suit and this is what PM Khan did not like”. "Why did the government open marriage halls, religious congregations, even tourism when every doctor in the country was warning against a surge?" she questioned.
Another PPP Senator Sassui Palijo said that each speech by prime minister spread disappointment, as he earlier said that virus was not dangerous and an ad was also released. She added even amid pandemic, prime minister and his government were engaged in political victimisation and even an honourable person like MSR was confined and no cases hitherto could be framed against him.
“We can finish locust how can we deal with the virus. When we talk of issues, it is said we always talk about Balochistan. What should do when Qesco recruited 41 persons and only two are from my province,” said Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini of BNP-Mengal.
Leader of the House Dr Shahzad Waseem urged the opposition to desist from playing politics on the national issue of coronavirus and said Prime Minister Imran Khan had taken timely decisions and due to these, cases and deaths were lesser than the projections made on the basis of data.
He pointed out health was a provincial subject under the 18th Amendment, yet prime minister and his government was fully aware of their responsibility in this connection. He added policies were made and decisions made with consensus under NCOC and NCC.