KARACHI: The Sindh government on Friday announced that it would hold a virtual budget session of the provincial assembly through modern technology in line with the advice of health experts for social distancing to contain the spread of coronavirus.

The Pakistan Peoples Party also demanded a commission to probe into the recent petrol crisis across the country and make its report public.

In a statement, Sindh Infor­mation Minister Nasir Shah also called the fresh crisis another example of the federal government’s “incompetence”.

“The petrol crisis in the country, which is causing trouble to all Pakistanis, is another clear example of the incompetence of the federal government,” he said. “We demand that a commission be set up to not only determine those responsible for the petrol crisis, but also to determine why there is a petrol crisis in Pakistan at a time when the prices of the petroleum products are at the lowest level in history, and there is no petrol shortage across the world.”

He said that the federal government did not seem to care about the concerns of the people.

Info minister says PA’s budget session would be held virtually

Shah said that the federal government of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was fortunate that it had got a very “experienced, serious and sincere” opposition.

“The opposition does not obstruct any initiative of the PTI government. The opposition fully supported the steps taken by the federal government to prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” he said.

He blamed the federal government for initially taking the issue of the coronavirus very lightly. “We still urge them to take it seriously so that the rising death toll can be stopped,” he said.

CM in touch with parliamentary leaders

Shah further said that the budget of Sindh for financial year 2020-21 would be presented in the virtual session of the assembly.

The chief minister, he said, had also contacted the parliamentary leaders of various parties in this regard and hoped that they would also agree to this.

He said that it was the need of the hour to convene virtual sessions of all the assemblies including the National Assembly.

In the time of the pandemic, the information minister said, it was not possible to convene the regular budget sessions in which all members could physically participate.

He said that with the help of modern technology, not only the honourable members of the assembly would be able to address the virtual session, but they would also be able to attend the session in full.

“Although the Speaker of the National Assembly has made a very good decision to keep the attendance of members at 25 per cent, in this time of pandemic only the virtual sessions of the assemblies could have been convened by using modern technology,” he added.

The information minister said that in this regard, help from the ministries of information technology and science and technology could also be sought.

“We should be extremely careful especially after so many members have been infected with the coronavirus after attending the recent sessions of the assemblies,” he said.

Shah also asked the National Accountability Bureau that if it wanted to question a political leader, the investigation officer concerned should do it through video link by using modern technology.

Instead of calling Sindh chief minister to Islamabad, NAB could also get answers to their questions on video link.

“Unfortunately, this is not being done,” he said. “We should not forget that many officials of NAB themselves have been infected with the coronavirus,” he added.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2020