Sherry Rehman urges govt to come up with unified policy

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sherry Rehman on Tuesday severely criticised the government’s handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, saying that the prime minister has been giving confusing messages.

Addressing a Senate session, the PPP leader referred to the conspicuous absence of Prime Minister Imran Khan who did not attend the session of the National Assembly summoned yesterday to discuss the coronavirus situation in the country.

“The missing person is the prime minister. He is missing, his policy is missing, his words of unity are missing,” she said in a Senate session. “Where is the PM? Who is running the country?” she questioned.

Senator Sherry Rehman has said that the government is not ready to sit together and form a policy to deal with the disease and is issuing conflicting messages. She said that Pakistan cannot make mistakes like Italy.

The PPP leader said that the government has created confusion by choosing between lives versus livelihood. “Lives always come first,” she declared.

Rehman criticised at the government for “creating distractions” and said that while the 18th Amendment had given provinces autonomy, it does not imply they are on their own.

“Provinces are not on their own. The provinces are self-sufficient but they are not the state,” she said, adding that there was a feeling of abandonment in provinces as all governments were adopting separate strategies.

She said the current situation was worse than war, and the focus of the next budget should be shifted to the safety and protection of the people. She said that national unity is need of the hour to deal with the unprecedented challenge posed by the coronavirus.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi responded to the criticism and said the prime minister was in Islamabad working day and night to fight the war against coronavirus and was regularly holding meetings with provincial chief executives.

Qureshi negated Rehman’s claims that the government did not have a unified policy. He said there is no confusion and the policy is clear. He added that a national strategy has been created and the opposition has a hand in formulating it.