No Covid jab, no salary, Sindh CM warns govt employees

Ag Agencies

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Thursday threatened withholding the salaries of public sector employees who fail to get themselves inoculated against Covid-19 by the end of the month.

The emphasis on vaccines came as the country’s infections appeared to be slowing down, though cases and deaths saw an uptick since the past day. Pakistan’s active cases stood at 53,099 after 2,028 new cases were discovered in the 24 hours leading to Thursday. Ninety-two people died in the same period. A total of 926,695 cases and 21,022 deaths have been recorded so far.

The decision in Sindh, which the Chief Minister described as “drastic” during a meeting of the Provincial Task Force on Coronavirus made vaccination mandatory for all citizens of the province. Sindh, which was largely spared the ravages of the third wave, has of late seen cases increase as Punjab and KP recorded slowing infections. Karachi’s coronavirus positivity ratio was 13 per cent on Thursday, according to Geo News.

Announcing the policy decision, Shah directed the chief secretary to give the month of June to all the government, semi government and local government employees for getting themselves vaccinated and stop the salaries of those officials who fail to get themselves vaccinated by the end of the month.

“I mean, [salaries of] non-vaccinated officials would not be released after June,” he announced. “We have to secure our citizens by taking some drastic measures,” Shah said, directing the health department to expand vaccination facilities.

“I want at least 300 basic units to be declared as vaccination centres in the rural areas with a target of vaccinating 30,000 people per day,” he said. Shah, giving another target to the health department, said five mobile vaccination teams should be established in every Taluka.

Meanwhile, National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) chief Asad Umar said the government had so far spent nearly $250 million to procure jabs. “The acceleration of vaccination drive in the country is being made possible by huge investment by the federal government,” he said, adding that “so far the procurement of vaccine has reached nearly a quarter of a billion dollars”.

Umar tweeted that the government would spend “much more” in the next fiscal year for further procurement of vaccines.