SUKKUR: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Ghotki chapter on Monday expressed its grave concern and resentment over pathetic situation in several UCs of the area due to hunger, joblessness and helplessness caused by prolonged lockdown. It condemned the local administration for “deliberately” avoiding distribution of food and other relief goods among the hard-hit families.

The aggravating situation was discussed at a meeting of the PPP Ghotki (city) chapter which was presided over by its president Abdul Majeed Lakho. Other office-bearers Adil Raheem Malik, Abdul Jabbar Shaikh, Abdul Hakeem Shaikh, Kanaiya Lal Daultani, Bhajan Lal and others attended the meeting.

The meeting noted that officials of the local administration were taking away bags of ration and relief goods and handing them over to feudal lords and other influential figures of the area instead of distributing them to deserving families.

Mr Lakho observed that these influential people were giving away the relief goods to their favourites. He also observed that the needy families were running from pillar to post for financial and material assistance as their bread-earning members had been out of work due to the prolonged lockdown.

Mr Lakho told the meeting that provincial minister Jam Ikramullah Dharejo had made “great” efforts to arrange the relief goods in an adequate quantity for distribution among deserving families of Ghotki but unscrupulous elements within the local administration had robbed them of their much-needed relief.

The meeting noted that not a single deserving family in UCs 5 and 7 Hussain Beli of Ghotki had received the relief goods and most of them had already run out of money and food. They situation, it observed, was causing these several hundred families to starve. The meeting appealed to the top PPP leadership to pay urgent attention to the situation and save people of Ghotki from starvation.

They also urged the party leadership to take notice of cruelty being demonstrated by the district administration officials concerned in this hour of trial.

Counterfeit notes found mixed in packets

SUKKUR: Women queuing up outside two centres set up at the Govt Degree College and Govt Higher Secondary School in Ghotki got panicked on Monday when they came to know that several packets of Rs1,000 denomination notes provided to the local officials for distribution contained some counterfeit notes.

The financial assistance was being distributed under PM’s emergency aid programme.

Waheed Ahmed Naich, who was overseeing one of the two centres, confirmed that he found eight counterfeit notes mixed in different packets of Rs1,000 notes. The officials apprehended that some beneficiaries might already have received such fake currency as the problem had come to light after much of the money was already distributed.

Some officials at the centres found out during the counting and distribution of money that the packets contained some counterfeit notes.

It transpired that the packets of currency notes had been drawn from two private banks. Managers of the branches concerned were informed of the issue soon after the counterfeit notes were found.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2020