Daily Times

Sindh Government Spokesperson and Advisor for Law, Environment & Coastal Development Barrister Murtaza Wahab said that the federal government has never made a serious effort to resolve the issue of census.

Wahab said a committee was formed to resolve the census which presented its findings to the federal cabinet without consulting the provinces against a decision of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in this regard. Speaking at a press conference at Sindh House, Islamabad Barrister Wahab said negating CCI’s decision was a blatant violation of the constitution, and although the Sindh Chief Minister was assured of a third party audit of the census results, the federal government has failed to fulfill its promise.

Taking a dig at the Prime Minister Imran Khan, the spokesperson said “Imran Khan’s logic was to decide something else in CCI and say something else in the cabinet and the population of Sindh and Balochistan had been under-reported and the 24th amendment had been made on the issue of census.” He added that”Present Pakistan Tehreek-e-Iqtdar is in power in the country. “

The biggest problem in the country at the moment is the results of the census and no one has acknowledged these results, he added. He said that this government was asked to form a committee at the CCI meeting in November 2020 to take recommendations, but no consultation was held with our government and later Prime Minister Imran Khan alone made the recommendations and got approval from the cabinet. We have evidence that the population of Sindh and Balochistan has been underestimated in the census, he apprised.

Unfortunately, the PTI government itself is not doing justice to this issue. “Citizen statistics is necessary for proper planning in the country. If it is correct if the numbers are not counted then how can the problems of the citizens be solved. The issue of three hospitals in Sindh would be taken up by the Sindh Chief Minister in the CCI meeting,” Wahab noted.

Meanwhile, highlighting his government’s performance on Covid-19 issues, Barrister Wahab said that more than 8.3 million citizens of Sindh have been treated in the NICVD hospital and more than 300,000 of them are not residents of Sindh. He maintained that in the last two years, 2,000 patients came from Azad Kashmir, KPK, Balochistan and Punjab who were treated free of cost.

He further said that cancer patients were treated with cyber knife facility in JPMC under public-private partnership. Since 2012 till date 13,075 patients had been treated under Cyber Knife out of which 48% are citizens of Sindh and the rest are from other provinces who had been treated, Wahab added. Stomach scan machine facility for cancer patients is provided free of cost and this facility has been running since 2016 and so far 8500 patients have been treated, said Wahab.

However, He noted that when the NICVD Hospital was acquired by the Sindh Government, there was only one hospital and when the Sindh Government gave autonomy to the NICVD, its branches were opened in different districts of Sindh. Wahab lamented that although the Supreme Court in its judgment has ordered the federal government to reimburse the expenditure incurred by the Sindh government, but so far not a single penny has been returned to the Sindh government.