Daily Times

LAHORE: A resolution against the proposed privatisation of the national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and the Pakistan Steel Mills was submitted in the Punjab Assembly Secretariat on Wednesday.

The resolution was filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) legislator Dr Noshin Hamid. In the resolution, it was stated that the privatisation of both public entities was not acceptable and government should take the opposition and parliament into confidence before making such decisions.

She said that once profit-making institutions had been converted into loss-making entities due to incompetent people. The resolution demanded that both the institutes should not be privatised and some competent people be hired to run the two institutions.

Separately, the opposition while taking a serious notice of printing of Quaid-e-Azam’s photos by a match box factory on its product demanded the government to ban the factory. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) legislator Malik Taimur Masoon filed a resolution in the Punjab Assembly in which he showed his serious concern over such kind of businesses.

Opposition leader in the House Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed of the PTI also submitted a separate resolution in the assembly secretariat in which he highlighted the fresh report of United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) showing concern over the high death rate of newborns in Pakistan.

Mehmoodur Rasheed said in the resolution that the UNICEF had declared Pakistan top country across the world where death ratio of newborns was highest.

He demanded the Punjab government that it should take sound steps to end the missing medical facilities in the health sector and also start an awareness campaign about the health of mother and child to avoid deaths of newborns.

Legislator Kh Nizamul Mehmood from PP-241 Dera Ghazi Khan filing a separate resolution demanded the Punjab government that it should fix a special quota of 10 percent in medical colleges, including Nishter Medical College and Sheikh Zaid Medical College, for students of tribal areas.

In its report, the UNICEF had ranked Pakistan the worst country, recording around 46 newborn deaths per 1,000 births-almost one in 20. Of the ten worst ranked countries, however, eight are in Africa. For instance, in Somalia, home to one of the world’s highest newborn mortality rates, there is only one doctor, nurse or midwife for every 10,000 people, according to 2014 data.

Published in Daily Times, February  22^nd 2018.