Daily Times

Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Interior and former interior minister Senator Rehman Malik has expressed his concerns over exchange of political statements on flood and has urged all politicians to stop playing politics on natural disasters at the cost of their own poor masses.

“I am worried to see the way politics is being played on floods where the governments, both the federal and provincial levels are fighting on percentage sharing,” he said, adding that the federal government represents the state and the state is the mother which has to look after each and every citizen of the land. He expressed that Prime Minister Imran Khan should have been more tactful and gracious in working with Chief Minister Sindh, and CM Sindh should also have cooperated for the sake of the people of Karachi adding the media teams on both sides are fighting like kids.

Rehman Malik said that it looks as if both sides’ media teams are indulging in competition where they are winning at the cost of the public of Karachi who are already crushed with ethnic and poverty storms. He wished that his observations shall be taken positively as Karachi is his city too. He appealed to fellow politicians to stop playing politics on floods and other natural disasters at the cost of your own poor masses. He advised that both federal and provincial governments should sit with the map of Pakistan, analyse past destruction of the floods and design ways to channel flood water by creating channels based on surveys and hold this water in dams in all provinces. He suggested that the water board should be converted into Water Board Authority which should be empowered with adequate funding to manage the flood water and river water in such a way that each and every drop of water falls in the sea should be used for agriculture to enhance our agricultural proceeds.

He expressed that Pakistan continue to face water scarcity every year because of the inability of authorities to properly use and manage these water resources for socioeconomic and environmental sustainability. He said “Pakistan receives 145 million-acre feet of water every year but only 14m acre-feet of water are preserved and we can meet the shortage if we have proper storage of rainwater and floodwater.”

Senator A. Rehman Malik announces that soon he will move a bill on “The Flood Control Act” in order to store rainwater throughout the country, fixing the responsibility on concerned authorities.