ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan Secretary General Liaquat Baloch on Wednesday, while flaying the government policies of laying-off thousands of employees of public sector institutions, has said that the JI in collaboration with trade unions will not allow the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government of depriving the people of their livelihoods.
Addressing the protesting employees of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) here, he said that the PIMS was a national institute providing health services not just to the people of Islamabad but also thousands of people from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab on a daily basis.
He said that the Imran Khan-led federal government was bent upon laying-off the staff of all the national institutes, adding that privatization of PIMS like health facilities would deprive millions of poor people from the accessible treatment. He said that within the past two and a half years the PTI government had already made over three million people jobless.
Last month, President Dr Arif Alvi promulgated the Medical Teaching Institution (MTI) Ordinance under which the hospital will be run through a board of governors (BoG). According to the ordinance, the BoG will deal with all affairs of PIMS once it becomes an MTI. The BoG members have been appointed and notified by the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) on the recommendation of a search and nomination council. They also held a meeting and elected Dr Hamayun Mahmand as the chairman of the BoG. The BoG has overall superintendence and control over the functions of the hospital.
The employees have been protesting and demanding withdrawal of the ordinance. They have suspended all services except in the emergency and Covid-19 wards.
Baloch on his solidarity visit to join the protesting employees of PIMS announced that not only his party but all the opposition parties have denounced the government move of making PIMS a corporate body both inside and outside the parliament. He appreciated the services of PIMS doctors and staff, and said he was indebted to the hospital employees for their services to his son, who was injured in a blast in 2008.
He said that on the one hand the PTI-led government had badly failed in checking the ever increasing prices of essential kitchen items, and on the other hand, it was depriving the people of their jobs. He said that the increase in the prices of electricity was a result of the talks between the government and the IMF, adding that the masses who had already taken to the street against the policies of the PTI government, would never accept this increase. He demanded the government a decrease from 25 percent to 50 percent in the prices of electricity, gas and basic food items instead of any further raise in them.
He said there must be an independent audit to find out the estimated loss to the national exchequer due to the policies of the PTI which resulted in sugar, flour and other crises on different occasions in the past two and a half years. He said there was a dire need to build the economy on Islamic principles, and get rid of the international financial institutions to avert further loss to the national kitty in the future.
The rulers should know that getting some relaxation in payment schedule of foreign debts was not a permanent solution to put the economy on track, Baloch added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020