Next phase in country's fight against COVID-19 difficult: PM Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that the next phase in the country’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic is difficult and urged the nation to strictly follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) to avoid the tough situation, ARY News reported.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, while addressing the National Assembly, said Pakistan is going through a difficult situation, urging people to follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) properly to defeat coronavirus.

“If we can get past this month without numbers escalating, the worse could be over,” he said, adding that warning negligence could make matters worse.

“It is our duty to make people realise how important it is to save the elderly and those with comorbidities. The next phase is critical and we can avoid the worse by taking precautions”, added the prime minister.

“If people take precautions than our health system will recover the situation as sufficient facilities are available here in the country. If we complete this month with extreme care than we can be prevented from the negative impacts of coronavirus.”

The prime minister lauded the National Command and Operations Centre’s (NCOC) efforts in forming and implementing Pakistan’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The government had constituted a team in NCOC which comprised of doctors and cabinet members, he said.

Addressing criticism by opposition parties about government’s confusion to tackle Covid-19, the prime minister said, “It was only Pakistan’s government which was not confused about its to tackling Covid-19”.

“I want to challenge the opposition to point out a single contradiction in my statements since we imposed the lockdown,” he said.

PM Imran said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government introduced smart lockdown instead of imposing complete lockdown in order to protect people from the disease and hunger. “34 per cent of people have gone below the poverty line in India due to complete lockdown which vindicates our stance of not going for complete curfew”.

Commenting over the economic situation, the premier said that the present government had received a weak economy with a deficit of $20 billion while $60 billion were being spent on imports.

The government contacted the country’s allies to seek financial support as Pakistan had reached to default stage which needed a timely decision for the nationals. The circular debt had reached Rs1.2 trillion when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came into power.

He said that the federal government had immediately adopted austerity measures after coming into power in order to reduce expenditures. The current account deficit has been reduced to $3 billion from $20 billion, whereas, the primary deficit was ended during the ongoing tenure of PTI. He added that the Pakistan Army cut its expenditures for the second time.

The premier said that the staff at the PM House could be reduced further, however, the decision was not taken due to the current scenario as the government was not willing to unemploy people.

He also criticised the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) agreement, saying that the 15-year agreement was not signed by the present government while the gas rates were low in the international market today.

He elaborated that the poverty alleviation programme, Ehsaas, had been introduced with the allocation of Rs208 billion. “Our tax growth was 17 per cent before the commencement of [COVID-19] lockdown. We have paid off Rs5,000 billion loans acquired by the previous governments.”

He said that the world has admitted the fact that coronavirus created biggest-ever economic crisis of the century, whereas, $12 trillion financial loss were recorded around the world in accordance to International Monetary Fund (IMF). He said that nobody could predict the recovery time of the global economies.

“Despite facing a difficult situation, the federal government has not reduced its PSDP Public Sector Development Programme) funds in order to smoothly run the economy besides lifting duties on thousands of raw materials.”

“We are trying to resume tourism under SOPs after reopening construction sector by allocating Rs30 billion. We will also make efforts to privatise the construction and agriculture sectors. Chinese technology will be used to upgrade the agriculture sector.”

PM Imran Khan further said that it was the foreign policy of Pakistan for not participating in the United States’ (US) war. He asked US President Donald Trump to take further steps for the establishment of peace in Afghanistan.

PM Khan reiterated that the Modi-led government was based on fascism and Hindutva ideology which is being opposed by the Indian people. Pakistan has exposed the Indian government’s RSS ideology before the world that changed the international media’s opinion regarding India, he added.

The world has also witnessed the real situation of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK) due to Pakistan and the global leaders were not discussing the ongoing barbarism in the occupied valley.

He added that the movement of Kashmir could not be stopped as the issue reaches the point of no return.