CM questions PM, energy minister’s ‘silence’ as Karachiites suffer hours-long power outages

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has expressed his amazement at “the prime minister and the energy minister acting as silent spectators” at a time when the electricity crisis is deepening in his province, including Karachi.

Winding up the general discussion in the house on the proposed Sindh budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 on Friday, he said the entire province, including Karachi, was being subjected to a worsening situation of power loadshedding.

“The K-Electric says that it is not getting furnace oil, while the PSO on the other hand says that it has been supplying the furnace oil. The Sui Gas Company says that it has been supplying gas. All these three institutions have been under the control of the federal government, but it is amazing that the energy minister and the prime minister have been keeping silence on this issue,” the chief minister said.

He asked why such treatment was being meted out to the people of Karachi and for what reason there was a shortage of electricity in the city. He condemned the prolonged instances of power loadshedding in the city.

He said Karachi was very much part of Sindh as it was his own city, and in the upcoming fiscal year up to Rs70 billion would be spent on its development. The general discussion in the house on the new provincial budget continued for six days.

As the CM spoke, opposition legislators resorted to protesting while holding placards in their hands, and gathered around his chair. This angered the chief minister, who said the opposition MPAs had been brazenly violating precautions against the spread of the coronavirus instead of following them.

He paid tribute to healthcare professionals, personnel of the police, the army and the Rangers, and media persons for daringly discharging their duties during the epidemic of the coronavirus. He praised the services of those who had saved the lives of people during the crisis.

Shah said that the country had been facing the biggest crisis of its history. He likened the coronavirus crisis to that of the East Pakistan debacle in 1971.

He said the tally of deaths caused in the country due to the coronavirus health emergency had touched 4,000. He noted that number of people affected by the coronavirus in Sindh was 75,168 and 54 per cent of them had recovered. He said the recovery ratio of the patients in Punjab was 29 per cent.

The chief minister said his province had secured the capability of conducting 14,000 coronavirus tests on a daily basis, and for one million people in the province 8,000 tests had been conducted. It was being ascertained why a less number of tests had been conducted in the last three days. He added that Sindh had done the maximum number of tests in the country.

On April 1 this year, said Shah, there had been merely 91 intensive care unit beds available for the patients of coronavirus in the province, and the number had increased to 453. Similarly, for the COVID-19 patients the number of beds available in the high dependency units of the hospitals in the province had increased by 859.

The CM said that he was amazed to listen to the speech of the PM the previous day as he had called a notorious terrorist a martyr. He said the PM had been in the habit of speaking without due consideration and later he had to retract his statement.

He said the PM had wrongly mentioned in his speech that lockdown measures had been imposed in the country on March 13 this year. He said Sindh had become the first province in the province to impose the lockdown in the country.

Shah said the prime minister in his latest speech had wrongly claimed that his narrative during the coronavirus crisis in the country had remained unchanged. He said the PM had earlier claimed that lockdown measures could not be imposed in the country as hunger would force the people to come out of their homes.

He said that no one in the country had died of hunger due to the lockdown imposed against the spread of the coronavirus.

“If the Sindh government is so powerful that it does take all steps out of its free will, then for what reason you are in power. You should better step down,” said the CM while referring to the remarks of the PM regarding his government.

He informed the house that the auditor general of Pakistan had decided to conduct an audit of the government’s funds spent in Sindh to tackle the coronavirus emergency, and in this regard, the Sindh chief sectary had received a letter from the auditor general. He said that from July 1, the audit of the funds spent by the departments of the Sindh government to tackle the coronavirus emergency would be conducted and this exercise would continue till August 15.

The CM disclosed that Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Munawwar Hussain, renowned speaker and Islamic scholar Allama Talib Jauhari, both of whom had recently passed away, had been suffering from the coronavirus. He said that the family members of another noted Islamic scholar, Mufti Muhammad Naeem, who also recently passed away, were suffering from the coronavirus.

However, towards the end of his speech in the house, after a chit was passed on to him, the CM made a correction about JI leader Syed Munawwar Hassan, saying that he had not been suffering from the coronavirus.

He said his government had to purchase expensive vehicles to tackle the locust emergency in the province on the instructions of the chief of the National Disaster Management Authority. He said that before the 18th Constitutional Amendment, there had been 700 hospital beds for every one million population of his province, and this number had increased to 850 after the adoption of the 18th amendment.

He expressed the fear that it would become difficult for his government to disburse the salaries to its employees in the coming months if the province didn’t get the due share of its funds from the federal government. He said that Rs45 billion were being spent to foot the monthly salary bill of his government.

He said that his government despite allocating money in the new budget had stopped purchasing new vehicles till the time the coronavirus emergency lasted in the province. Referring to the remarks of an opposition lawmaker in the house, the CM said that he didn’t know as to when the incumbent PM had used a motorcycle to give ride to his children. He said that first of all, the PM should bring back his sons to his native country from abroad.

The chief minister said that he had not met the PM in his latest visit to Sindh as his tour was of private nature. He said that neither he was his (PM’s) personal friend nor did he belong to the party of the premier, and he had decided not to meet the country’s chief executive.

“The PM went to Larkana to meet a new ATM as his earlier ATM has gone abroad,” said the CM while referring to Jahangir Tareen, a senior leader of the PTI, without naming him. He said that the days of the present federal government were numbered as “they have failed to live up to the expectations of their selectors”.

Earlier, while winding up his speech in the house that had been continuing since Thursday, opposition leader in the house belonging to the PTI Firdous Shamim Naqvi said Karachi’s status in the country was like that of a milk- producing cow, but the Sindh government of ate PPP was bent upon murdering this cow.

He said the development and progress of the city had been ignored in the budget. He said the Thar area of Sindh had a 1.7 million population as 73 per cent of children in the area had stunted growth issues.

He said he had failed to understand the health management system of the province, recalling that the late Dr Furqanul Haq of Karachi didn’t find any ambulance which could rush him to hospital when his health condition deteriorated. He said that a parliamentary committee should have overseen the management of the coronavirus health crisis in the province.

He said the federal government would take over the control of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Karachi from July 1 this year, and for the purpose a monetary allocation had been made in the federal budget.

Earlier, the house unanimously passed a resolution to pay tribute to leader of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Munawwar Hassan, who had passed away earlier in the day in Karachi. Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal MPA Syed Abdul Rasheed presented the resolution.