The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is ready to go to any length on the issue of 18th Amendment whether it is courts or the streets.
Sindh Information Minister Nasir Hussain Shah expressed these views, while addressing a press conference at the PPP media office in Islamabad on Saturday.
PPP chief of media coordination Nazir Dhoki was also present on this occasion. The minister accused the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the federal government that they started talking about the NFC and the 18th amendment just to hide their failures.
"We have to fully implement NFC and 18th amendment first, before we talk about them. On the issue of 18th amendment, the PPP is ready to go to courts and the streets," he warned.
Nasir Shah said the criticism and bad mouthing started during the session of the National Assembly by the foreign minister, when he was asked first to deliver his speech on Covid-19 so its response had to come from opposition.
Provincial information minister accused the prime minister and the federal government of spreading confusion about the lockdown amid Covid-19.
"When the government witnessed that the entire world and media was appreciating the measures taken by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah under the guidance of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the prime minister and his cabinet as well as the PTI members went berserk and started abusing the Sindh government and PPP. The only crime of the Sindh government and the PPP was that they took appropriate measures to contain Covid-19 in time," he said.
Nasir Shah said if Pakistan had imposed a very strict lockdown for about two weeks as Sindh had suggested instead of giving confusing signals to the people, we would have been in a way better situation to deal with this pandemic.
He said the difference between PPP and the PTI is of awareness and ignorance. He added after Sindh every other province and federation imposed lockdown within days but the PTI criticised only Sindh for lockdown.
Similarly, different areas in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad and Punjab were sealed but only Sindh was criticised for sealing a few UCs in Karachi, he said.
Regarding allowing the Tiger Force to function in Sindh, Shah said Sindh would facilitate the Tiger Force despite objection on its name.
The provincial minister said if Imran Khan decided to open transport then he should come out and say so but he did not want to take responsibility.
He said similar was the case of opening businesses and shops but Imran Khan was continuously shying away from leading the country.
He said Sindh and Balochistan both had reservations on allowing transport to start.
He said when the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Pakistan, Sindh had a capacity of conducting only 80 tests per day, which has now been increased to 6,000 tests per day.
Sindh has 12,000 beds and the capacity will soon be increased to 20,000. He told that Sindh has 280 ventilators and 200 more are on the way. The minister also said not a single ventilator has been provided by the federal government yet.