Sindh government takes pandemic of Covid-19 very seriously from day one: Nasir

Sindh Minister for Information, Local Government, Housing & Town Planning, Religious Affairs, Forest and Wildlife Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has said that the Sindh government has dealt with the pandemic of coronavirus very seriously from day one, and no leader of the PPP could ever think of point scoring on an issue of a pandemic.

He said chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on day one, when the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Sindh, directed all the members of the Sindh cabinet, including Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, to avoid politicising the issue of coronavirus. "We cannot even think of politicising an issue related to pandemic and human lives," he said.

Syed Nasir Hussain Shah said that Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had also told Prime Minister Imran Khan on the first day that his party was with him on this serious issue of the outbreak of pandemic and wanted to work in cooperation with him.

The provincial Minister for Information said that the day when the issue of the coronavirus emerged in the province and across the country, we put point scoring and politics in quarantine from the same day, adding that, to this day it is still in quarantine. He said that all the provincial ministers, including him, were very careful not to give any statement that would lead to a dispute.

He said that if everyone had followed the serious approach of Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah right from February 26, the situation could have been different today. "We do not want to keep our people in the dark," he said. He said that at this moment in time no one knew the exact volume of the virus spread but everyone was commenting on it. The Minister asked had all these services were stopped on the orders of Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah? He further asked that had the other provinces opted for and extended the lockdown at the behest of the Sindh govt?

The provincial Minister for Information said that whatever the information the Sindh government had gathered so far, the situation was alarming at this moment in time, adding that, the exact figures were not being conveyed to Prime Minister Imran Khan and therefore he could not to be blamed.

He said that when the federal government would constantly say that people would die of starvation due to the lockdown, people would suffer from various problems in case of prolonged lockdown, then how could the Sindh government succeed in implementing an effective lockdown? He said that after the statements made by the federal government about the lockdown, people of Sindh were doubting our state of mind, opining that, when the federal government was informing that everything was fine then why the Sindh government was constantly insisting on a lockdown.

Provincial Information Minister said businessmen in Sindh would now be allowed to do business only by following the rules made by the Sindh govt. He said that Sindh govt had great regard for the business community of the province and that is why they were also being exempted from excise and SRB tax to a certain extent. He said that the business would be opened gradually after the standard operating procedures were finalised.

He said that although still not every needy person has been served, but the Sindh government gave ration to millions of families at the government level and also at the individual level.-PR