ISLAMABAD: Minister for Maritime Affairs Syed Ali Haider Zaidi on Thursday asked the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government to justify spending Rs118 billion in health sector, which was in a deteriorating condition.
While talking to a private news channel, he said that after the 18th Amendment. the provincial government was responsible to bring improvement in the health sector but unfortunately the PPP rulers totally neglected it.
The minister said that the resident of Karachi were making a hue and cry over mishandling the affairs in the provincial capital. Voicing concerns over irregularities in the budget allocation for health and other sectors, he said that the PPP, despite being in government for many years, had not built a single state-of-the-art hospital for treating the patients of contagious diseases.
Commenting on the lockdown situation, he said that in DHA, strict measures were being observed but in some other parts of the city, the situation was totally opposite.
About the rising number of patients in Karachi and other cities of Sindh, Zaidi said after the 18th Amendment, it was the responsibility of provincial government to take steps for overcoming the health issue instead of doing politics over it.
Responding to a question about lack of coordination in policy formulation regarding virus pandemic, he said that Prime Minister Imran Khan and his cabinet members were taking decisions in consultation with all the stakeholders and representatives of the provincial governments. Despite meager financial resources, all possible steps were being taken by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government to protect the citizens from the deadly virus.
Meanwhile, Liaqut Shahwani, the spokesperson of the Balochistan government, said they had increased the testing capacity and the number of patients was rising everyday with increased testing.
He viewed that relaxation in the lockdown could prove fatal for the people of Balochistan. He, however, said the that government had provided necessary equipment for increasing testing capacity in the public sector hospitals besides instruction to implement strict standard operating procedures in markets and other outlets of the province.
