Zartaj Gul slams Sindh govt for criticising relief efforts of Centre

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul has strongly criticised the Sindh government for launching criticism on every move of the Centre to provide relief to the masses amid COVID-19 crisis, ARY News reported on Friday.

Zartaj Gul, while talking to ARY News programme ‘Aietraaz Hai’, said the Sindh government criticised each move of the Centre despite failing to provide necessary facilities to its citizens.

The state minister said that the lockdown measures in Sindh were restricted to press conferences. The provincial government has once adopted stance to accept decisions of the premier, on the other hand, criticism was launched on the federal government’s relief efforts.

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She questioned the reason for not accepting the premier’s order to restore transport in order to provide eases to the nationals.

“World Health Organization (WHO) had also admitted that lockdown could be imposed for a long period. In Pakistan, the coronavirus lockdown has badly affected small business. The decision to restore transport is focused to facilitate people who are consistently complaining for facing severe difficulties.”

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The minister expressed fear of wheat crisis as the continuous suspension of transport would create shortage of essential goods in the country’s markets.

“At this time, the Sindh government is going to sign an agreement with private hospitals [to treat COVID-19 patients]. The government was previously making tall claims for constructing state-of-the-art hospitals which have now proved false.”

Read: Public transportation to remain suspended in Sindh: Awais Shah

“The Sindh government had previously announced to distributed ration worth Rs8 billion, however, the statistics were not declined to Rs1 billion. The provincial government should also put forward the details of Rs5.5 trillion spendings on health sector.”

Gul elaborated that Rs27 billion worth funds were distributed among needy people under the PM’s relief programme.