Passing the buck: Bilawal blames Centre for heatwave deaths

We must continue to highlight the incompetence of the federal government in meeting the energy challenge

KARACHI:

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has blamed the federal government for hundreds of deaths caused by the blistering heatwave in Sindh.

“We must continue to highlight the incompetence and bad governance of the federal government in meeting the energy challenge,” he said in his first public message upon his return from Dubai on Saturday.

Read: Death toll from killer Karachi heatwave surpasses 1,000

Bilawal said the avoidable deaths of hundreds of people in Karachi due to heat has been caused largely by the inability of K-Electric to honour its pledges and the inability of the federal government to make the utility meet its licencing conditions to avoid load-shedding.

The PPP chairman also congratulated the Punjab chapter of his party for holding joint protest rallies and sit-ins with other political parties against power outages during Ramazan.

Read: Killer heatwave: Mercury drops but death toll continues to rise

“I’m pleased with your initiative for organising protest demonstrations on Friday in the province against load-shedding along with all opposition parties,” Bilawal said in a message to PPP Punjab chapter’s president Mian Manzoor Wattoo.

Reminding the PML-N of unfulfilled pledges, he said the government on assuming office over two years ago had promised to end load-shedding in six months, but the crisis has worsened in the past two years.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2015.