Tackling political mess is more important than city’s cleanliness: Maryam Nawaz

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has stated that it is more important to clean up political mess than simply dealing with the city's waste.

Speaking at the "Suthra Punjab" event in Lahore, she said that after the departure of Shahbaz Sharif, the province she inherited was in disarray, with roads once built by Shahbaz now broken, a failing cleanliness system, hospitals in poor condition, and free medicine no longer available.

The Metro bus system was also in ruins. "If Shahbaz Sharif’s government had continued, Punjab would have been different," she added.

Maryam also spoke about the newly introduced waste management system, which ensures that garbage is picked up from people’s homes and taken to landfills.

She stressed that while this is a government initiative, it is also everyone’s responsibility, Express News reported.

Under this programme, she announced, Punjab would create 100,000 new jobs within a week, roads would be cleaned, and new cleanliness equipment would be purchased.

Maryam Nawaz stated that it is more crucial to clean up political mess than simply managing garbage. She recalled how several calls for protests, violence, and destruction failed to gather any support.

"Each time they called for people to come out, to kill, burn, or destroy, they were met with failure. No one showed up in Punjab, and I didn’t see more than a couple of dozen people at any of their rallies," she said.

Maryam further pointed out that when people are truly concerned, they take to the streets. "When I held protests and rallies, people came out and no one could stop them. Today, they claim we didn't allow them rallies, but during our time, we never broke a single flowerpot, nor did anyone from our party damage property."

She added that while peaceful protest is a right, violence is unacceptable. Maryam emphasised that before May 9, rallies were never stopped, but after the events of that day, no one trusts them anymore. "Protests are allowed, but they should not be armed, and people should come forward for talks, not violence."

She said that when she went to CMH, she saw dozens of police and Rangers personnel injured, their bones were broken. Do you call this public protest? The mastermind of the protest is sitting in jail. We have served prison sentences, but has anyone ever heard that a call for protest was made to burn, kill, or shut down the city? Neither did Nawaz Sharif ever say such a thing.

Maryam Nawaz said that someone should show me one of their sit-ins from 2014 till now that was a public protest. They hired foreigners, gave them tasks, and armed them, telling them to set the country on fire. For each terrorist, they gave fifty thousand rupees. What did the KP government do? The people of KP's money went into terrorism.

The Chief Minister said that they claimed a thousand people were killed, but how could so many people die and no one knows? Then they reduced the number to five hundred. A video of Bushra Bibi fleeing came out; where are the bodies?

CM launches free medicine supply to districts in Punjab

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the provision of free medicines to several districts during her visit to the Central Medicine Warehouse at Maraka, one of the country's largest such facilities.

She ordered the functionalisation of medicine warehouses in Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan at the earliest.

CM Maryam Nawaz oversaw the loading and departure of trucks carrying medicines for various districts. She also inspected the furniture, medical equipment and other goods to be provided to hospitals. She also checked the validity of the medicines and the temperature system.

Punjab Health Secretary Ali Jan Khan informed the CM that the medicines could be stored at a standard temperature and transported from the warehouses.