PM should resign if unable to fight corona: Centre not helping provinces, says Bilawal

KARACHI: Chairman of Pakistan People's Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has demanded that Prime Minister Imran Khan should resign and go home if he doesn’t want to work, so let someone else work in his place to counter the alarming spread of the coronavirus in the country.

The PPP chairman made the statement on Friday, while addressing a press conference here at the New Sindh Assembly building’s auditorium. He was accompanied by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, provincial Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, Education and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani, Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, and Law Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab.

“Do you consider yourself the prime minister only of Islamabad? You are the prime minister of the entire country and you should better do the work assigned to you,” said the PPP chairman on the occasion while addressing the PM.

“The prime minister used to give one statement in the day while he gave another statement in the night. He should tell about the elite who enforced the lockdown in the country,” he said. “The prime minister should get down from the container as he should realize that he is now the PM of the country,” he said.

The PPP chairman lambasted the federal government while saying that it had not come to the support of the provincial governments in their fight against the spread of coronavirus. He claimed that Sindh had done the maximum in the fight against the coronavirus but still it came under criticism from the federal government instead of getting any support. He said that owing to inaction and lack of support from the federal government, the situation of coronavirus spread in Karachi could become as worse as had been the case of New York City.

He said that coronavirus cases had been increasing from Lyari to Landhi in Karachi as the dense population of the city was the major risk factor and vast number of needy people had been gravely threatened by the rise in COVID-19 infection rate. He said that the federal government didn’t give a single penny to the Sindh government to enhance its testing, healthcare capacity, and to support its relief measures for the needy people hit hard due to the lockdown.

The PPP chairman said that the federal government at present had much fiscal space at its disposal as most of its obligations are related to debt retirement and defence expenditure while right now neither it had to pay back the debts nor it had to fight any war. Instead, he said, the federal government should give attention to tackle the coronavirus crisis.

He alleged that the federal government had let down all the provinces in the current coronavirus crisis. He said that nobody should feel insult or criticism when the provincial governments called for support from the Centre. The PPP chairman said that coronavirus was such a massive tragedy and no provincial government alone could tackle it and the support of the federal government was necessary.

He lamented that the federal government had not fulfilled the basic demands of doctors, nurses, and other paramedical staff for provision of equipment for their protection in their fight against the coronavirus. He said that the doctors and paramedical staff were like the frontline soldiers of the war against the coronavirus as not providing them equipment for their protection meant that soldiers without being armed were being sent to the border to fight a war.

He said that doctors and paramedical staff, being the frontline soldiers of the current war against the coronavirus epidemic, should be given the maximum support by the federal government in its terms of personal protective equipment against COVID-19 infection.

He lamented that despite repeated demands and vociferous protests by the doctors in different provinces, the federal government had failed to provide them with equipment for their protection as they deal with the patients of coronavirus.

He said that the Sindh government had been doing its best to enhance its coronavirus testing capability and to give protective equipment to the doctors and paramedical staff as for this it required the support of the federal government.

He said that the federal government, apart from the one-time fiscal support from the budget reserved for Benazir Income Support Programme, had done nothing for the financial assistance of the labourers and daily wage earners hit hard by the coronavirus lockdown.

He said that neither the federal government had been providing testing kits to the provinces nor it had been extending support to establish the clinical labs.

He said that the federal authorities had always given statements against the 18th Constitutional Amendment but the Centre in actual was not ready to fulfill any of its current constitutional obligations. He said that if in case, the federal government was not in a position to support the provinces in their fight against the coronavirus, then the least it could do was not to oppose the narrative of the Sindh government regarding the spread of coronavirus crisis that is actually the narrative of World Health Organization and of expert doctors.

He said that the Sindh government should be given support by the federal government in its struggle against the coronavirus in view of the financial assistance the Centre had got from the international financial institutions. “We have been doing our best to save the lives of our people,” he said.

He said that the federal government had not been providing support to the Sindh government in its efforts to give fiscal relief to people hit hard due to the lockdown in the form of an ordinance. “The prime minister used to say that death rate in the country due to coronavirus has been low and he should tell what death rate will compel the federal government to come into action against the epidemic,” he asked.

“We haven’t conspired against the federation as the biggest threat against the PTI is PTI itself,” he said.

He said at first the PM had stated that coronavirus death rate in the country had remained low due to lockdown but later people became non-serious and did less observance of the lockdown measures owing to the statements of the PM and his ministers.

He said that though there had been less observance of the lockdown measures but no matter to whatever extent the lockdown was being observed, it had been beneficial as less number of people were getting infected. He appealed to the masses to use face masks whenever they ventured out of the homes for their maximum protection against the viral epidemic. Bilawal Bhutto said that people should observe the maximum protection against the virus as the current month of May was very crucial as viral infection could hit its peak during it.

He said that they had to prepare for the worst as more treatment, isolation, quarantine, testing, critical care facilities had to be built by the provincial government to accommodate rising number of infected people.

The PPP chairman said that the Sindh government did not get the support it required from the federal agencies to do direct cash transfer to the needy families during the coronavirus lockdown and instead it had to resort to the method of ration distribution as its performance in adopting relief measures for the poor people had been far better than other governments in the country.