Daily Times

Shehbaz, who is also the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, in a couple of tweets on Sunday called for the federal government to change its approach with regard to procuring vaccines.

“Planning should be done keeping in view the 220 million population. The small-minded view of ordering a few million vaccines and relying on donations needs to change,” the PML-N’s official Twitter account quoted Shehbaz as saying.

He said that the unavailability of the coronavirus vaccine is another proof of the government’s “criminal negligence and incompetence”. Shehbaz said the opposition has sounded the alarm time and again for the government to ensure timely booking of vaccines to keep the populace safe from the virus.

“The same thing is happening with the supply of vaccines as that which occurred with the supply of LNG,” the PML-N president said. He went on to state that “just as people with vested interests lined their pockets by scamming people over the sale of wheat flour, sugar and medicines, the same is being repeated when it comes to coronavirus vaccines”.

Shehbaz said that it is regrettable that the government, when it comes to the lives of the people, is “displaying the most serious form of criminal negligence”. The opposition leader said the situation has already been muddied with questions being raised about the Rs12,000 coronavirus relief package following allegations of corruption. “Theft of public funds is rampant and the provision of services to the public is zero,” he alleged.

“The people are being punished for the government’s thievery, incompetence and poor planning, which is regrettable and condemnable,” Shehbaz added.

Shahbaz’s remarks followed a statement by Minister for Planning Asad Umar, who said that a record number of vaccines — 2.3 million — have been administered to people in the week of June 12-18. He said this was done at a rate of 332,877 jabs a day.”This is the highest so far in any week,” Umar said.

The minister, who is also the chief of the National Command and Operations Centre, said that 1.5 million vaccines are arriving on Sunday and in the next 10 days, 5 million more will arrive.