PM following wrong priorities: Wahab

CM aide says Imran more focused on fundraising than relief, uplift work and vaccination

KARACHI:

Sindh government spokesperson hit out at Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday, maintaining that the PM was more focused on fundraising than vaccination against Covid-19 and giving relief to people.

The criticism came in the wake of the announcement of Rs440 billion development package by the Premier Imran in Sukkur on the day. The package covers 14 under-developed districts of Sindh.

Addressing a press conference, Wahab, who is also the adviser to the Sindh chief minister on law, environment and coastal development, remarked, "The PM is not interested in giving relief to people, but is quite active when it comes to collecting donations from citizens who are already paying huge amounts of taxes."

The PM only makes announcements about development packages, Wahab went on, implying that the announcements never led to any tangible results.

Read: PM Imran to announce mega development package of Rs446b for Sindh

"The prime minister has no interest in people's [welfare] or development packages. He is here to collect funds from Karachi's business community," the Sindh government spokesman claimed. He questioned that why was it that the PM visited Sindh was every year in Ramazan.

"The PM comes here to collect donations for the hospital. He is the first PM in the world to be asking for donations while heading a government," he added.

Wahab recalled that in March 2019, the PM had announced a Karachi package worth Rs162 billion.

"Even after a passage of two years, no progress is seen on that front," he said, further stating that a Rs1 billion package announced by the federal government for procuring mobile health units for Thar had met the same fate.

Till now, no project has been started or completed, remarked Wahab. He then went on to remind media persons that the federal government had also inaugurated a university in Hyderabad in 2019, the charter for which had not been approved to date.

"This is a joke with people," he commented before turning his attention to the Rs1.1 trillion plan for Karachi announced by the PM last year after the city faced devastation after unprecedentedly heavy monsoon rains.

Wahab said the PM was always in a hurry to make announcements that were rarely realised.

"It's better if he changes his name to Elan (announcement) Khan," the spokesperson commented, taking a jibe at the premier.

He was of the view that the federal government needed to shift its focus to vaccination against the coronavirus amid the pandemic's third wave.

"But the federal government is less focused on vaccination and more on fundraising," he decried.

People of all ages should be vaccinated and the 50-year age limit should be abolished, he stressed, raising alarm over the increasing positivity rate of the infections in Sindh over the past week.

In this connection, he also urged citizens to comply with pandemic-related standard operating procedures (SOPs) and use masks.

Calling to mind that the federal cabinet had approved the purchase of vaccine doses for the coronavirus in December last year, Wahab claimed that no jabs had been procured thus far.

Read more: PM Imran announces Rs440 billion package for Sindh during Sukkur visit

On the other hand, he said, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) postponed its public meeting in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh that was slated for April 4 on the occasion of the death anniversary of the party's founder and former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto due to growing cases of the coronavirus.

"The PM should have given a second thought to travelling to Karachi and Sukkur in these circumstances," he said.

Wahab called for action by the Centre for ensuring strict compliance with pandemic SOPs, adding that the PM's addresses at rallies in Karachi and Sukkur would be a "sheer violation of the SOPs."

The spokesperson also criticised the federal government's move to change the finance minister twice, stating that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government in the Centre did not seem to have a strategy.

Replying to a question, Wahab said Federal Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar words and actions were contradictory on the matter of census.