QUETTA: Leaders of opposition parties have alleged that the provincial coalition government has miserably failed to take steps to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic and its affairs are being run through WhatsApp and Twitter and other social media apps.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, opposition leaders Advocate Malik Sikandar Khan and others said that despite constituting a parliamentary committee on Covid-19 a long time ago, the government had not held a single meeting of it just to hide what the opposition leaders called corruption being committed by the government leaders in health and other institutions in the name of coronavirus and health emergency.

The opposition leaders also rejected the allegation by a spokesman for the government that opposition leaders had disappeared in the coronavirus pandemic in the province and said that it was the government which was not visible on the ground, while the opposition leaders were standing by the masses.

They said that since the BAP-led provincial government took oath, the opposition leaders had been pointing out “flawed policies” of the government, but it did nothing to change tack.

They said that the provincial government was using development funds through non-elected politicians and constituencies of opposition leaders were being ignored in development projects.

They opposition leaders said that they had written letters to the chief justice of Pakistan, governor of Balochistan, chief justice of the BHC and chief election commissioner and provincial election commissioner to take action against the “incompetent government” of Balochistan.

The parliamentary leader of Balochistan National Party, Malik Naseer Shahwani, said the government had installed just six ventilators in Fatima Jinnah Chest Hospital and three ventilators in Sheikh Zaid Hospital and senior politician and MPA Syed Fazal Agha had to be shifted to Karachi due to lack of ventilators.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2020