Lack of funding: Miffed bar leaders drop plan to name hospital after BB

‘PPP reneged on pledge to provide Rs340m for 150-bed hospital’.

LAHORE: The Lahore Bar Association has decided not to name a proposed hospital for lawyers after former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after the PPP-led federal government’s promises of funding fell through, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The bar had obtained promises from PPP representatives that the federal government would pay Rs340 million to build a modern, 150-bed hospital, said LBA officials. Instead, they are now seeking donations from lawyers to build a single ward hospital with four beds.

LBA General Secretary Kamran Bashir Mughal confirmed that the bar association had decided not to name the proposed hospital Benazir Shaheed Lawyers Hospital. Instead, it will likely be called Lahore Bar Welfare Hospital, though the matter will be discussed at the upcoming LBA house meeting. “The [federal] government has not provided funding as promised. They have made a mockery of it,” he said.



He said that the LBA would collect money from lawyers to fund the hospital, construction of which would begin soon. He said that the health secretary had agreed to supply two doctors for the hospital when it became operational. He said that it would consist of a single ward with four beds.

In 2011, then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani promised then LBA president Shehzad Hassan Sheikh that the federal government would fund the construction of the hospital for lawyers at a site next to the commissioner’s office, on land owned by the Evacuee Trust Property Board, said bar officials. Former governor Sardar Latif Khosa also told the LBA that the federal government would provide funds to construct the 150-bed hospital.

Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali was elected LBA president in 2012 and he met with Khosa in February 2012 and was told that a summary had been sent to the president and he would soon approve the award of Rs340 million to the bar for the construction of the hospital, the bar officials said.

“The governor told the LBA representatives that the amount would be given in two instalments. But when we asked for the first instalment, he said that it would be given in another 15 days. The issue kept being delayed,” said one official.

A new LBA executive was elected in January and it has now decided not to name the proposed hospital after Benazir Bhutto.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2013.