PTI prioritising uplift over health during pandemic: Bilawal

KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday excoriated the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for, what he said, “prioritising development over health during a pandemic”.

“The government said is going to spend Rs70 billion on fighting the coronavirus, but if you read the fine print, you will see that the amount has been kept as slush funds for PTI MNAs,” he claimed in a fiery press conference that ranged from coronavirus to the federal budget. The PPP chairman said his party had raised this issue in the National Assembly. “The government should be working on increasing health facilities and providing relief to the people. During a pandemic the government is more interested in repairing roads,” he added.

The PPP chief was flanked by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Sindh Health Minister, Dr Azra Pechuho and other party leaders. The federal government should have announced a health or Covid-19 package for every province in the budget, Bilawal said, adding that the country had to increase its healthcare and testing capacity. “This support, however, was not provided to us (Sindh),” he said.

“The government even slashed the budgets of the provinces and expects us to fight a pandemic on our own,” he said. “Sindh’s budget has been slashed by Rs229 billion and Punjab’s by Rs400 billion. This is the time to support the provincial governments as we have never faced a challenge this big before,” Bilawal added.

Pakistan is facing the worst locust invasion in 25 years, he said. “We have known about it for a year now. We appeal to them to take it seriously and help our farmers. This is a difficult situation.”

The PPP chairman said it decided to postpone all political activities because of the pandemic, including marking founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death anniversary. “The PTI repaid us by making the Covid-19 outbreak political,” said Bilawal.

PPP Chairman also expressed his concern about possible takeover of three teaching hospitals in Karachi by the federal government mentioning that this would affect the specialised training programs for doctors, nurses and healthcare personnel belonging to Sindh. “Their leaders keep criticising the Sindh chief minister and the party is trying to take away our hospitals too,” he said. “I challenge the government to show me one government hospital that is offering the same quality treatment as the NICVD.”

Reacting to Bilawal’s presser, PTI lawmakers like Haleem Adil Shaikh, and Aftab Siddiqui hit back. Shaikh termed it a pack of contradictions meant to “neutralise the achievements of the PTI government in winning over the hearts of the masses in Sindh”.

Siddiqui said the PPP for the third consecutive time projected figures that were “absolutely against the facts and contrary to the allocations actually made under the federal budget for 2020-2021”. “Factually Covid-19 fund was accorded top priority in the budget for forthcoming financial year and this particularly included Rs1,200 billion stimulus package for its control and management,” said the MPA from Karachi.

Siddiqui also asked the PPP chairman to share details of what his party had done for critically needed development projects in Karachi, “the commercial hub that also happens to be the major source of revenue generation for the provincial government”.

“Provincial government has largely ignored Covid-19 as well as the agriculture sector in the budget for 2020-2021,” he added. He also said the 18th Constitutional Amendment has become a “shelter for the wrong doings of PPP government and was therefore being defended by it”.