Memon advises Siddiqui to get facts straight over hospital funds claim

Despite their maximum contribution to the national tax pool, Karachi’s residents have been doing without the basic necessities of life, including education, health care and sanitation, said Federal Education Minister Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui during the Sindh School Improvement Conference at the LLCF Javed Miandad Campus on Saturday.

Dr Siddiqui, who is also the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) chairman, said that despite losing its valuable status as the federal capital decades ago, the city has been duly fulfilling all its obligations to the country.

He said the city’s residents have been paying taxes more than their financial capacity to get the basic necessities of life and civic amenities, but in return the government cannot even provide an ambulance service for them.

Despite the provincial capital accounting for most of the taxes collected by the government in the country, charitable funds are being used to operate public healthcare and educational institutions in the city, he added.

He also said that such a sorry state of affairs reflects dishonesty in governance affairs. Taxes are used all over the world to ensure the welfare of the masses, he added.

Siddiqui said Karachiites have been paying taxes as well as donating money to charitable causes. He claimed that funds donated by philanthropists are being used to operate the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). He said taxes should be spent to operate charities’ educational institutions instead of using donations for the purpose.

He opined that the worst form of democratic governance based on feudalism has been nurtured in the country to serve the vested interests of the rulers.

He said his party is a part of the present government to ensure that the democratic dispensation in the country serves the people in the best possible manner. He claimed that the country has not been run according to its foundational principles in the past 77 years.

Claim rejected

Sindh Senior Information Minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Sharjeel Inam Memon rejected Siddiqui’s statement, saying that since the devolution of the city’s three major hospitals in 2011-12, the provincial government has provided them with a lavish budget of Rs157.733 billion for upgrading them and for patients’ treatment facilities.

Issuing a statement, Memon said that before talking to the media on the development of Karachi and health facilities for its people, the federal minister should approach him for data so that he can speak with genuine facts and figures instead of grasping in the dark.

Sharing the data, the information minister said that in 2011-12, when the JPMC, the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) were devolved, the provincial government provided them with Rs1.377 billion, Rs3 billion and Rs234 million respectively.

He said that between 2011-12 and 2023-24, the provincial government has released Rs76.536 billion to the JPMC, Rs62.905 billion to the NICVD and Rs18.292 billion to the NICH.

The total budget given to these major health facilities over the last 14 years amounts to Rs157.733 billion, underscoring the provincial government’s dedication to the health sector, the people of the province and the country in general as well as those of the city in particular, he added.

Memon said that during 2020-21, when the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc, the provincial government released Rs104 million and established a 90-bed facility at the JPMC.

He said that in 2021-22 the government released Rs104 million for the operational costs of a 90-bed Covid-19 facility, released a Rs240 million grant-in-aid for the Patients Aid Foundation (PAF) and purchased essential equipment for the JPMC’s surgical complex.

He also said that in 2022-23 the government purchased essential equipment for the JPMC’s surgical complex for Rs588.5 million and released another grant-in-aid of Rs340 million for the PAF. In 2023-24 the grant-in-aid for the PAF was increased to Rs640 million, he added.

Discussing the 2024-25 fund allocation, Memon mentioned that Rs2.137 billion has been earmarked to procure equipment for and supply utilities to the new 12-storied, 532-bed medical complex at the JPMC. Additionally, he said, a grant of Rs640 million has been allocated to the PAF.

He also said that Rs1.86 billion has been provided as grant-in-aid to the PAF between 2021-22 and 2024-25. “This financial support aims to ensure that proper care and facilities are available for patients visiting from all over Pakistan.”

The minister said the MQM leadership is desperate and politically misguided under the impression that the people of Karachi would follow blindly as they used to, but the party leadership is mistaken.

“Today the people of Karachi believe in the PPP’s leadership, appreciate the provincial government’s development endeavours, and laud its efforts for the restoration of peace, tranquillity and tolerance in this megalopolis.”