DADU: Leader of the Opposition in Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh has termed Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah’s government a security risk for the country as the chief minister went ahead with his decision on lockdown against NCOC’s advice just to disrupt economic activities in Karachi, which had barely started recovering from the ill-effects of earlier protracted lockdown.

Sheikh said at press conferences in Jamshoro and Nawabshah on Sunday that instead of ensuring vaccination of all people the Sindh chief minister was doing politics on the issue on the directions of his boss Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.

He held Pakistan Peoples Party rulers responsible for the current health crisis and said the health department had not set up even a single vaccination centre where people could get vaccinated in an adequate manner.

He said that incompetent health minister could not even pay salaries to vaccinators posted at Expo Centre in Karachi but they were involved in selling vaccines, which were provided to the province by federal government.

Sheikh said that lockdown for a week in a city like Karachi would have ill-effects on economic activities in the entire country. PPP rulers were only interested in minting money and were least bothered to tackle the situation in an adequate manner in the light of NCOC directions, he said.

He said that during a visit to Expo Centre in Karachi he witnessed huge crowds in long queues waiting for their turn to get vaccinated and hardly any person was able to observe SOPs while Sindh government had not made any proper arrangements for people at the centre.

He said that the Supreme Court had ruled that provinces could not take unilateral decisions on lockdown but the Sindh government flaunted the apex court orders by imposing the lockdown.

About suspension of work on the Sukkur-Hyderabad-Karachi Motorway, he said that provincial government was creating hurdles to the completion of the project. National Highway Authority had already released Rs14 billion to Sindh government to acquire land for the motorway but the government was dilly-dallying on its part of the bargain.

He asked Sindh chief secretary to play his role and retrieve occupied land so that work on the motorway project could resume. Any move to halt any project of the federal government would be resisted and all such attempts would be foiled.

Haleem for compensation to heirs of PMT blast victims

HYDERABAD: Sheikh told journalists on Sunday evening after offering condolences to bereaved family members of the victims of July 22 Akbari mosque transformer blast tragedy in Latifabad that compensation would be paid to heirs of the victims and prime minister would be requested to sack all the officials of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) responsible for the tragedy.

He said the federal government had taken the accident seriously and the prime minister would make an announcement about the compensation within this week.

Sheikh said that he had been attacked by ‘Zardaris’ in Nawabshah. It was the fifth attack on him in Sindh when his convoy passed through the area near Zardari House it came under attack, he said.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd , 2021