ISLAMABAD: Sindh Minister for Information Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has refuted the federal government’s claim that it has provided a lot of medical equipment through the National Disaster Management Authority to the province.

Speaking at a news conference with media coordinator of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Nazir Dhoki here on Saturday, the provincial minister also alleged that “not a single ventilator has been provided so far, nor a laboratory has been set up for testing Covid-19 patients” in Sindh by the federal government.

He regretted that it was unfortunate that so far they had failed to formulate a national policy regarding preventing people from the pandemic.

Advises federal ministers to focus on serving the people in distress

Mr Shah said if Pakistan had imposed a very strict lockdown for about two weeks as Sindh had suggested, instead of giving confused signals to the people, they would have been in a better situation to deal with this pandemic today.

The minister said at present the Sindh government had more than 280 ventilators while it had also ordered import of another 200 ventilators, out of which 100 were about to arrive immediately. He said there was currently a capacity of 1,200 beds for people infected with the coronavirus, which was being increased to 2,000.

In reply to a question, Mr Shah said although the Sindh government had an objection to the name of Corona Relief Tiger Force, the chief secretary had issued instructions to all deputy commissioners to facilitate the members of the volunteer force.

He said PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had said from day one that the Sindh government would have to work with the federal government on every single issue regarding the coronavirus, but unfortunately the Centre did not cooperate at all.

The minister expressed surprise over the decision of easing lockdown when it had already been extended till May 31.

Blaming the federal government for a delayed response, he said the first case of the coronavirus was detected in Pakistan on February 26 and Prime Minister Imran Khan called the first meeting to discuss the issue on March 13.

Mr Shah said criticism for the sake of criticism on the Sindh government could be gauged from the fact that, when a few union councils were sealed in Karachi, a never-ending cycle of criticism began despite the fact that the Barakahu area had been sealed in Islamabad and many other localities were closed in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The provincial minister said the way the members of the business community as well as the general public violated the guidelines about the lockdown, the Sindh government was in a quagmire regarding opening of other business sectors. He said if people continued to violate the guidelines in the same way, it would be impossible for the government to further relax the lockdown.

He advised the federal ministers to focus on serving the people in distress, instead of making baseless allegations against the Sindh government. He said the entire focus of the federal government spokespersons was on defaming the Sindh government, instead of creating awareness among the people regarding the prevention against coronavirus.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2020