Opposition calls for proactive approach to tackle future calamities

KARACHI: Opposition legislators on Tuesday called for an adaptable and pre-emptive planning to cope with the untoward natural calamities in future, saying that the flood affectees are still hapless to find relief goods.

The Sindh Assembly resumed its discussion on flood and its aftermath in the province with MQM lady minority legislator, Mangla Sharma said that people in the flooded areas are in need for relief assistance.

Foreign shipments of relief goods arrived to help the affectees with the needed assistance. She said that the public is in miseries seeking help.

The government may have carried out a relief operation but people are still helpless, she said and questioned that whereabouts of the foreign relief goods, which could not reach the needy affectees.

She also asked whether the foreign financial assistance for the relief is being transparently used to help rehabilitate the flood affectees in Sindh.

GDA’s Shaheryar Khan Mahar said: “We will not say that you (the government) have submerged the province but we will indeed say that you did not rescue it.” He alleged that the province, which the PPP has been ruling for the last 14 years, is being run by the deputy commissioners. “Some 93 people died in Shikarpur alone,” in floods, he told the house.

He questioned that why the available stocks of tents could not reach the affected people, saying the Sindh government is “playing politics” in the crisis. He also blamed the PPP rule for flood devastations.

Nida Khuhro of the PPP said that the province suffered the “unprecedented devastation” in recent floods, which left some 33 million people affected.

She claimed that her party rule will rehabilitate the destroyed houses, saying that the Sindh government has distributed about 83,000 tents among the affectees. The Sindh government provided “enough” relief in the crisis.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022