MIRPURKHAS: Federal Minister for Petroleum Chaudhry Ghulam Sarwar, addressing a big public meeting at Gama Stadium here on Saturday, said that Sindh and its people would now get all their due rights “usurped by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government over the past decade”.

He said people of Sindh would witness massive development across the province and a big package for the purpose would be announced soon.

“During PPP’s rule over the province, the ‘Zardari League’ looted resources of Sindh and rendered it a backward area,” he alleged, and held out the assurance that under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, PTI would serve the province without any discrimination on a priority basis to get people’s problems resolved.

The public meeting was organised by independent MNA from Mirpurkhas Syed Ali Nawaz Shah and attended by thousands of people.

The minister said it was no more a secret that both the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) plundered the national exchequer. The PTI government was doing its best to recover the country’s lost wealth as it had promised to the nation.

Says no corrupt element will remain outside jail

“The accountability process is under way in the country in a transparent manner and the [federal] government is ensuring that no corrupt element remains outside jail,” he said.

Chaudhry Sarwar said youths in Sindh would be provided jobs on merit basis. Usurped rights of the people of Sindh would be restored, he added.

Criticising PML-N and PPP policies which, according to him, brought miseries to common man, he said the masses rejected them in the recent general elections. “Now PML-N and PPP stand confined to their respective provinces, Punjab and Sindh, respectively,” he said, adding that PTI had emerged as the biggest party having its representation in all four provinces.

The minister pledged that a university and several colleges would be established in Mirpurkhas after consultations with stakeholders so that students of this area also could get higher education within their district and be able to compete with others at national and international levels.

He said corrupt elements in the previous governments had destroyed the national economy due to which the present government was facing critical financial issues.

He acknowledged that different parts of the country, including Islamabad, Kara­chi and Mirpurkhas, were currently facing problems due to low gas pressure in supply lines. He said all-out efforts were being made to resolve the issue. He said gas would also be provided to deprived parts of Mirpur­khas district. In this regard, he pointed out that exploration work along the coastal belt and seashore had already begun.

Chaudhry Sarwar observed that political parties in the past had divided the nation on ethnic lines and pit one linguistic entity against the other but now the nation stood unified to shun the ethnic divide.

Chaudhry Sarwar and Federal Minister for Water and Power Umer Ayub Khan appreciated MNA Syed Ali Nawaz Shah’s efforts for the resolution of the issues being faced by the people of his constituency. They said the PTI government was doing its utmost to overcome water and energy crises which it had inherited from the successive governments.

Mr Khan observed that an improvement in electricity distribution system was witnessed due to an effective campaign by power utilities against power theft in Sindh and other parts of the country.

He announced that power shortage in Mirpurkhas would end after a new grid station, to be established here at a cost of Rs700 million, would start functioning. A big transformer costing Rs100m would be installed in Mirpurkhas and three feeders worth Rs60m in Kot Ghulam Mohammad town, he said.

The minister informed the audience that under a directive of the prime minister, senior officials of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) had been told to hold open katcheries within their respective areas every week to hear public complaints and get the issues resolved. He said jobs in Hesco would be provided to local people on merit basis and advertisements in this regard would soon appear in the print media.

He appealed to the general public to cooperate with the power utility in eliminating power theft in order to ensure proper electricity supply to every consumer.

Earlier, MNA Ali Nawaz Shah said he fully supported the PTI government’s efforts to end corruption in Sindh. He acknowledged that the onslaught was targeted against those who had looted Sindh’s resources and not against any party. He hoped that all such corrupt elements would be sent behind bars soon.

He also highlighted the issues of energy crisis, unemployment and lack of development in his constituency and urged the federal government to address them on a priority basis to undo the adverse implications of the provincial government’s flawed policies and to provide immediate relief to the masses.

MNA Shakoor Shah, councillor Nawab Qureshi and activist Javed Papa also spoke.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2019