PML-Q slates federal, provincial govts for shambolic planning

Karachi
With over 1,500 deaths reported and over thousands currently admitted at hospitals across the city owing to the unprecedented heat wave in the city, the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q) held both the federal and provincial governments responsible for the massive death toll at a press conference held at the Karachi Press Club on Sunday.
PML-Q Sindh President Haleem Adil Sheikh while severely criticising the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led provincial government claimed it was misguiding the public over the exact number of deaths caused by the heatwave.
Sheikh said that even after the colossal tragedy, both the federal and provincial governments were busy blaming each other of negligence, adding that setting up inquiry committees would be of no help; however, suggested taking strict action against those responsible.
Referring to a report of the Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), issued a year earlier, he said the report clearly warned of severe temperature rise in Pakistan in the year 2015.
“It seems as if Karachi was not a part of Pakistan anymore.”
Holding the KE equally responsible for the incident, Sheikh said most of the victims belonged to the lower class residing in shanty towns where continuous load shedding added to their woes, consequently resulting in deaths due to suffocation.
The PML-Q Sindh leader said that had the government adopted precautionary measures on time, several innocent lives could have been saved.
He said the Rs43 billion allocated to the Sindh Health Department were not made use of whereas the provincial Baitul Mal also failed to provide relief to the public.
“No emergency medical camps were set up neither were ambulances arranged for except for a limited number of ambulances provided by charity organisations instead of the government,” Sheikh added.
Responding to a media personnel’s question, he said that all government departments should have been ordered to install medical camps outside hospitals as well as in lower income localities and if adequate ambulances could not have been provided, the government should have arranged for private vehicles.
He added the provincial authorities also failed to realise the necessity of a free funeral service even though most of the victims belonged to poor families.
Also taking to task the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), he said the authority had limited its activities to purchasing and selling helicopters.
Speaking of visits to hospitals by ministers and officials of the Sindh government, he said the visits were limited to photo sessions only whereas the security protocol provided to each official added to the troubles of the patients.
While also blaming the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf for not establishing a single relief camp, he said the party had only limited itself to delivering tall claims when it came to owning Karachi. Ridiculing the Sindh Minister for Local Government Sharjeel Memon’s order to install 330 camps after three days, he said the order was nothing less than a joke.
He said the Pakistan Relief Foundation would soon issue a fact finding report on the tragedy and file a petition in the Sindh High Court against both the Centre as well as the provincial government.
He demanded of the federal and provincial governments to announce Rs5 million as compensation for all bereaved families.