GILGIT: Pakistan Peoples Party, Gilgit-Baltistan chapter, president Amjad Hussain Advocate has alleged that Chief Minister Hafeezur Rehman has started canvassing for the upcoming GB Assembly elections despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, he said the government had failed to provide relief to the lockdown-affected people. He said the region lacked testing facilities for the coronavirus patients.

He alleged that the GB government was announcing development projects rather than focusing on containing the pandemic.

He said the chief minister was violating the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules. He said despite lockdown construction work on CM’s personal residence was underway in Gilgit.

Amjad Hussain said development funds could have been diverted to prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic. He said so far 25,000 relief packages could be distributed among the people from the Rs30 million donated by the government servants.

He lamented that paramedical staff were still deprived of the personal protective equipment. They even do not have gloves and masks while treating the infected patients, he deplored.

The PPP leader said the chief minister was doling out funds to only selected contractors. He also accused him of pressuring local media outlets not to write against him. He said the information department was distributing government advertisements only among those newspapers, which toed the government line, and those daring to publish news against government’s mismanagement and corruption were being punished.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2020