Promise of S Punjab secretariat fulfilled: CM

Assembly passes Rs175 billion supplementary budget

LAHROE:

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government has fulfilled the promise of setting up the Southern Punjab Secretariat made with the people of the region.

“Additional chief secretary (South) and additional IG (South) have been posted and both will assume their duties from July 1,” he said on Tuesday while addressing the Punjab Assembly after the approval of provincial budget.

The assembly approved the supplementary budget for the year 2019-20 of over Rs175 billion with majority, while rejecting all cut motions moved by the opposition.

The chief minister said non-transferable funds had been allocated for the backward districts. “Around 33 per cent funds have been reserved for South Punjab and Rs1.5 billion are earmarked for the South Punjab Secretariat.”

Besides the onslaught of coronavirus, the chief minister said the possibility of floods and another locust attack was also anticipated. At the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, the Punjab government constituted a cabinet committee for controlling in and imposed an emergency, the chief minister highlighted. “Then, the testing capacity was 100 only but today this capacity has reached 12,000 daily with the number of government testing labs reaching 17.”

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More than 500,000 tests had been conducted in Punjab and there was no shortage of medicines for coronavirus, he maintained. “Along with medicine supplies, there are 9,276 beds with oxygen, 2,600 high dependency units and 2,302 ventilators.”

He said Rs106 billion had been allocated to cope with Covid-19 in the province.

He said he and his team was working day and night to cope with the pandemic and locusts.

He said state land valuing Rs135 billion had been retrieved from illegal occupation. For the development of Balochistan, the PTI government had established a technical college in Kharan, a community centre in Taftan and a hospital consisting of 100 beds in Turbat.

The CM said the government had provided its officials an atmosphere free of influence unlike the previous regimes.

He praised the minister for law and parliamentary affairs over record legislation in the assembly on Tuesday. He also paid tribute to the speaker, law minister and finance minister for the preparation and approval of a people-friendly budget and announced special honoraria for the employees concerned of the law, finance and planning departments and the assembly.

The CM said that despite a strong opposition, the record legislation in Punjab was a testament to Raja Basharat’s political acumen, long parliamentary experience and deep knowledge of the law.

He said Basharat’s foresight had provided timely legal protection to government measures against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the province and also set a new parliamentary history by extending Punjab Infectious Diseases Prevention Ordinance 2020 to save its people from problems during the budget session.

Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi presided over the session.

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The opposition members created pandemonium as CM Sardar Usman Buzdar started addressing the assembly. However, the speaker restrained them from protesting.

PML-N’s Malik Arshad, while speaking on his cut motion, said there were six toll plazas on routes around Sahiwal and the government was collecting taxes but had no scheme for the poor people.

PPP’s parliamentary leader Syed Hassan Murtaza, speaking on his cut motion, alleged that the government’s priority was to spend funds on construction of officers’ clubs and walls of the graveyards rather than introducing schemes for poor people. He said the government had criticised the development projects of the previous rulers but it itself was unable to do anything for the poor.

The speaker later prorogued the house for an indefinite period.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2020.