Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, while announcing a large development package for Karachi, said that the provincial government was “lying” in press conferences about its procurement and delivery of vaccines.
“They don’t have a single vaccine [dose],” he said on Monday while expressing his dismay over a lack of development in Sindh for over a decade. He added that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had completely failed to develop the Shikarpur district.
He was addressing a public gathering in Shikarpur on a two day visit to Jaccababad, Shikarpur and Sukkur districts, wherein he also said that similar development packages would also be given to all districts of Sindh.
The federal minister stated that the PPP should be “ashamed” for politicising an “issue pertaining to people’s health” and added that while the federal government would provide the vaccine doses for the inoculation campaign, the Sindh government would be “standing in lines for the vaccine [saying] that the federal government should give it”.
Asad said that the federal government would still provide vaccines to the Sindh government, because the people of Sindh are as precious to the Centre as people of other areas.
The minister said that when the injustices against the people of Sindh are discussed with the Sindh government then they “remember the 18th amendment”.
The minister maintained that he would raise the matter to Prime Minister Imran Khan so that the he may “take responsibility” for the lives and livelihoods of the people of Sindh.
He said that in just two months after the onset of coronavirus, Rs200 billion were distributed among the people of Pakistan, out of which Rs65bn were spent on the people of Sindh.
On the occasion, he also said that Pakistan’s Covid-19 policy has been appreciated globally.
He recalled that when PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari called out for lockdowns “and when Sindh chief minister said that no one dies from hunger, the prime minister knew what poverty could do and the Centre announced the biggest welfare project for the help of the people in Pakistan’s history”.
On the occasion, he reiterated that, prior to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government formation in July 2018, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 5.8 per cent while core was 7.6 per cent, indicating that the rate of inflation is lower today than prior to the PTI government.
