Fight against pandemic: PSP demands Centre empower LG representatives

Pak Sarzameen Party Chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday urged the federal government to introduce an ordinance to activate and empower as many as 84,000 elected local government representatives from across the country to seek their help in the joint fight against the coronavirus spread.

Kamal said the Chinese government had battled against the spread of various by empowering the local government systems and Pakistan should follow the pattern of the neighbouring country by using all resources for the welfare of the people through municipal governments.

He expressed these views while reacting to the Prime Minister Imran Khan's recent video conference with parliamentary leaders in which he emphasised the need for volunteers to help the people.

“In case of an inevitable lockdown, only local bodies representatives know which house in their area needs ration or assistance,” said Kamal, who has served as the Karachi mayor. While offering his support to the federal and provincial governments as well as the law enforcement agencies in their collective fight against the pandemic, Kamal said the PSP was the first political party to propose that in the present situation, the government must mobilise the 84 thousand elected local bodies’ representatives through an ordinance with a vision to ensure all-out assistance to the people both in villages and cities, and determine the future course of the action based on the information received from them.

“The example of China is in front of us, where the federal and provincial governments used all their resources to deal with the coronavirus through local governments and they have eventually succeeded,” he said.

In this crucial time, the elected councillors and chairmen could effectively provide relief to the people as they obtained vast knowledge and detailed information of their respective

areas, which the volunteers couldn’t do, he said.

“In an inevitable complete lockdown, the local bodies’ representatives can ensure better facilities and arrangements, including the provision of food in quarantine centres.” He assured the federal and provincial governments that his party workers were ready to serve the people on a voluntarily basis under the local government representatives of their respective areas.

He asked other political parties to instruct their workers to serve the masses under the supervision of councillors of the area, setting aside all their political affiliations. “We do not want to do politics in this difficult time. In fact we urge the government to mobilise the local representatives from all over the country, including our arch-rival Mutahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan in Karachi and Hyderabad, to defeat this outbreak.”