JI chief says govt has failed to deliver on pledges

PESHAWAR: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) head Senator Sirajul Haq on Tuesday said the government had failed to deliver on its pledges and its flawed policies caused confusion among the people during the Covid-19 emergency.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan delivers speeches only and someone else makes the decisions. He speaks against lockdown but some other force orders it,” he said, while addressing a gathering where Eid gifts were distributed among orphan children here. The Al-Khidmat Foundation had arranged the ceremony.

Al-Khidmat Foundation provincial president Khalid Waqas, general secretary Shakir Siddiqui, Jamaat-e-Islami district head Atiqur Rahman and others were also present. He said the government raised the “Tiger Force” belatedly as the people faced the crisis without any help from the authorities.

“The government has closed tourist spots for visitors, but the prime minister himself along with his family and an “army of ministers” spent his Eid in the scenic valleys,” he remarked.

Sirajul Haq said that the government was also confused about its decision on lockdown. “If the prime minister considers that lockdown was not a good decision, he should have lifted it,” he maintained. Expressing concern over the lack of coordination among the federal government and the provinces during the Covid-19 pandemic, he said the federal government and some provinces were fighting each other.

He said the coronavirus patients, who were under treatment at hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, faced a host of problems. “They are being treated like terrorists. This is the reason that the patients are reluctant to visit hospitals,” he said. He also criticised the government for its failure to provide facilities to the health staff particularly doctors and nurses in the fight against the disease.

The JI leader said that several doctors and nurses laid down their lives during the crisis, but the government could not provide them the personal protection equipment to prevent them from getting infected. He was also concerned about the indefinite closure of educational institutions and said the government should take a decision.

He said the country didn’t need support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank rather it required an honest and capable leadership. The JI leader said that during the current crisis, the people of the country donated Rs2 billion to Al-Khidmat Foundation, which was properly utilised on the well-being of the people affected by the coronavirus crisis.

He said the volunteers of the Al-Khidmat Foundation distributed food and gifts among the affected people when the people were celebrating Eid. Speaking on the occasion, Khalid Waqas said that the volunteers of the foundation remained busy on Eid to provide gifts to orphans and ration to the deserving families. He said due to corona crisis they had suspended all its routine operations and focused all its attention on the Covid-19 pandemic during which they offered their services to the people to the best of their capacities.

He said that they could not leave the orphan kids alone. According to Unicef, the country currently had 4.2 million orphans. He added that the Al-Khidmat Foundation was taking care of 13,000 of them.