KARACHI, Oct 18: Leader of the Opposition in Senate Mian Raza Rabbani has called for opening a single account in the State Bank, where all funds received from foreign countries or generated locally for providing relief to the quake victims should be maintained for the sake of transparency and to avoid chances of corruption and embezzlement.

Mr Rabbani, who was addressing a press conference in the chamber of opposition in the assembly building on Tuesday, further demanded that a “Bipartisan Parliamentary Com-mittee” should be formed for supervising the relief fund acc-ount to ensure its transparency.

Stating that every citizen had a right for the accountability of the relief fund, he said the government should announce details of accounts which it had opened for the welfare of earthquake victims including how much funds had been submitted by civil society and how this money was being spent.

Mr Rabbani said bureaus and reconstruction commission was not enough as its formation would not going to solve the problems but people like doctors, engineers, architects, parliamentarians and all other technical people should be associated with the commission. He said elected people of the devastated areas should in particular be taken in the commission.

He lamented that the government had even failed to determine its direction, how it would meet the huge task of reconstruction. He said he did not like to criticize the government but priority should be given to rescue work and rehabilitation plan should be placed before the nation.

“For the sake of transparency, the government should immediately announce how many accounts are being maintained and the amount of money so far deposited there and in the heads and amount of money so far spent,” he added.

He said that he had gone through the 12-point reconstruction plan of the prime minister but he did not find his defined objectives and a clear road map for rehabilitation of the victims.

Meanwhile, Pakistan People’s Party Central Information Secretary Taj Haider has called for changing the national priorities after the 8/10 earthquake and emphasized the need for replacing the “trickle down” philosophy by the globally recognized concept of “protecting the people”.

He said that the safe recovery of people nine days after the disaster showed that thousands more could have been saved if the government had provided timely rescue.

It was only days after the arrival of media teams and civilian volunteers in disaster areas that the commanders chose to mobilize them for rescue and relief, he claimed adding that it was lame excuse to say that positions on the borders could not be left unattended.

He said that all troops were not deployed on the borders and no country would be foolish enough to take advantage of this hour of grief.

Inaccessibility factor had also been soundly discounted by civilian volunteers by their arrivals ahead of the government teams, he said. Are the transporters who are charging double the fare for goods and passengers or the whole-sellers who are black-marketing even the shrouds for the dead are also inaccessible for the administration? What action had the administration taken against these elements whom even a local magistrate could adequately tackle, asked Mr Haider.

The basic question was of misplaced priorities. Under the “trickle down” philosophy, those who were the most in need were the last to be attended to. Instead of the most severely destroyed areas receiving immediate attention, only the overflows of rescue and relief from major seats of administration had reached the unfortunate, he added.