Daily Times

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said that the situation of coronavirus outbreak has worsened in Punjab due to the negligence and inept approach of the government of the province, while the prices of all the edible items including sugar, wheat, fruits and cooking oil have also been increased in recent days.

The PPP has urged the Punjab government to immediately play an active role to provide relief to the people in this hard time of pandemic. “We reject the Tiger Force formed by the Prime Minister and the local committees should be constituted on the pattern of Sindh government having representation of all the political parties and NGOs to control the prices of edible items in this hard time,” said PPP Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira after chairing a meeting of Central Punjab chapter. He was talking to the participants of meeting of Punjab Executive Committee of PPP on Sunday through video link.

As per the details, Qamar Zaman Kaira said that the government must control the prices of edible items through effective enforcement of market committees and district administration. He also nominated the Parliamentary Leader of PPP Punjab MPA Syed Hassan Murtaza as the focal person to contact the Speaker Punjab Assembly and Chief Minister Punjab immediately to give them suggestions to control the outbreak of Corona Virus. He was of the view that the Punjab government is not doing the screening of the suspected patients in proper way while the medics are also not being given the safety kits to examine the patients. He also demanded to restore the Local Government structure of the Punjab in this very hard time as it can help fight the Corona war effectively.

“The PPP has played an active role in this war against Corona epidemic and the whole world is praising the efforts of the Sindh government,” said Kaira. He was of the view that instead of the Prime Minister Imran Khan it was the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari who gave the clear strategy and mechanism to control the Corona outbreak. The economic crisis is looming here and it will be worsened in next few days and therefore we need to make a strategy to help the poor and needy in this financial crunch, he added. According to Kaira, the epidemic is on the rise continuously in Gujrat, his home constituency, in result of a large number of expatriates who returned to Pakistan without any proper screening at the airports. “The confusion of PM can prove to be catastrophic for the country in this testing time,” said PPP leader.

PPP Punjab General Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor asked why the Punjab government was reluctant in doing screening of the suspected patients of Corona Virus. “The Punjab is doing less testing of suspected patients but still the cases of confirmed patients are rising alarmingly here. We urge the Punjab government to do at least the testing of 1 % population of the province randomly to get the real picture,” he said.