ISLAMABAD: Lashing out at Prime Minister Imran Khan over his announcement to use controversial one million-strong Corona Relief Tiger Force (CRTF) of volunteers for checking prices of food items in the country, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said the Tiger Force had no legal sanction to act on behalf of the state.

PPP Senator Raza Rabbani in a statement issued here on Monday termed the government decision to utilise services of the CRTF volunteers to check prices a joke and declared it another step towards making the country a “fascist state”.

“The state apparatus has been put in cold storage and the Tiger Force has been asked to control the prices. This is a joke..... Tiger Force has no legal sanction to take any action or act on behalf of the state,” said Mr Rabbani, adding that the federal government must realise that Pakistan was not a fascist state where party functionaries and volunteers could act for and on behalf of the state.

Mr Rabbani said that prices of vegetables and pulses had increased to such an extent that the common man could not afford more than a meal a day today and the federal government had failed to take any step to control mafias and cartels as they were linked to their crony capitalists.

The reaction from the PPP came a day after the prime minister tasked the CRTF with checking prices of food items and posting them on their portal, saying he would discuss the future mechanism at a convention to be held in Islamabad next week.

The CRTF was constituted by the government to ensure implementation of standard operating procedures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2020