Opposition leader rejects PA committee to monitor distribution of aid in flood victims

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has rejected the 11-member parliamentary committee formed by the Sindh Assembly’s acting speaker to monitor the distribution of aid to the flood victims.

The party’s rejection of the committee was announced on Wednesday by PTI leader Haleem Adil Sheikh who is also the leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly. He alleged that the acting speaker had formed the committee to cover the Sindh government’s embezzlement of funds for the aid of the flood victims as it had no member from any opposition party, including the PTI, Jamaat-e-Islami and Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan.

Sheikh said the formation of the committee was an unsuccessful attempt to conceal corruption of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MPAs in the relief aid provided by national and international donors.

“The opposition parties of Sindh reject this self-constituted parliamentary committee. If the Sindh government wanted to make the distribution of relief goods transparent, the opposition parties would have been included in the committee,” he said.

A day earlier on Tuesday, the Sindh Assembly constituted the 11-member parliamentary committee to monitor national and international flood response and ensure fair distribution of relief items.

According to a notification, the committee’s chairperson is Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker Rehana Laghari, and its other members include Syed Awais Qadir Shah, Ghanwer Ali Khan Isran, Mujeeb-ul-Haque, Mumtaz Ali, Ameer Ali Shah, Shaharyar Khan Shar, Rana Ansar, Abdul Jabbar, Sachanand Lakhwani and Naseem.

In a separate statement about the current political situation in the country, Sheikh said the whole nation stood with Imran Khan and people like Rana Sanaullah could do

nothing against the PTI chairman.

He claimed that the ruling alliance was running away from the elections because of the PTI's popularity. The government had drowned the nation in the flood of inflation, he added. Sheikh said the flood victims in Sindh had been left helpless by the provincial government as the PPP had been distributing the flood aid being provided by national and international donors among its workers and local leaders.

He alleged that wheat flour was currently being sold in Sindh at Rs120 per kilogramme but the provincial government had tried to hide its incompetence by just issuing a notification that said wheat flour should be supplied at Rs65 per kg.

On the one hand, the Sindh government had completely failed to implement its own notification, and on the other hand, tons of wheat were getting spoiled under the open sky, the PTI leader lamented. He added that for the new season, the Sindh government had fixed the government buyer's rate of wheat at Rs4,000 per 40kg, which would make the flour more expensive.