APC calls for withdrawal of NFC Award notification

LAHORE: Demanding Islamabad to immediately withdraw notification regarding the NFC Award and release Rs300 billion for Punjab due on Centre, the All Parties Conference held on Sunday at Bilawal House also called for concrete measures to protect citizens from Coronavirus.

The APC held on the PPP Punjab invitation slammed the government for hiding actual figures of Corona related casualties as well as its affectees. The APC also demanded the government clarify its position on Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir and voiced serious concern over the Covid-19 spread in Punjab and held the view that only in the provincial capital, the number of Corona affectees is above 0.6 million.

It demanded the government immediately restore the local bodies instead of relying on its so-called Tigers Force. The APC was attended by PML-N’s delegation headed by Rana Sanaullah that also included MPAs Samiullah Khan and Azma Bukhari. PML-Q’s Kamil Ali Agha, whose party is a government ally both in Centre and Punjab, also attended the APC. Besides, delegations of Jamaat-e-Islami, JUI, JUP, ANP, AWP, and Barabri Party also attended the APC.

The APC held the view that the government’s attitude to tackle deadly virus had been very irresponsible and non-serious due to which casualties were on a rapid rise. It voiced concern over the fact that Punjab had 60 percent population of the whole country but only less than 30 percent tests were conducted here in the province from the total conducted tests in Pakistan.

“The number of beds for patients in hospitals and quarantine centres are decreasing rapidly. The patients with diseases other than Covid-19 are also facing very difficult situation in hospitals and therefore the government must take a notice of it,” said the declaration issued by the APC.

“The doctors are crying and patients are suffering but the government is in slumber,” it said. The APC also held the view that the Centre is making an assault on the constitutional powers and financial resources of provinces and the Punjab will be worst hit by it. The APC declared that the political parties of Punjab would resist this move. Instead of increasing the wheat support price, the government is raiding the houses of farmers to confiscate their wheat illegally. The APC estimated that over 25 percent crops will be destroyed costing 1,000 billion due to the locust attack and the threat of food shortage is also looming here.

In a press briefing after the APC, PPP Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira said that it was decided today to convene an APC at the national level on the same issues. The government couldn’t constitute the board of Pakistan Steel Mill during last 20 months and it was decided that we’ll not let the government sell the PSM, Qaira said. The PML-N Punjab President Rana Sanaullah said that 2020 would have been an election year had Covid-19 not come here. He stated that the government was using the NAB for political engineering.