Karachi: When poor people in Sindh are dying of snake and dog bite, silently abandoning the project of a modern vaccine center at Sakrand near Nawabshah shows anti-people mentality of the provincial government of Sindh, said Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) here Monday.
PDP Sindh chapter leaders Rafiq Ahmed Khaskheli, Arshid Arian, Noor Muhammad Chandio and Sultan Khaskheli, in a joint statement here, said the PPP government in Sindh is not sincere to provide healthcare facilities to the poor. It is working for the benefit of the elite class and selected importers and suppliers of medicines and medical equipment instead of developing indigenous facilities. They regretted that vaccine producing center at Sakrand was set up spending huge taxpayers’ money, but it was silently abandoned when it went into production phase. They said the same ‘commission and kickback culture’ which has already destroyed many other public-service oriented projects in Sindh is involved also in this scam. They appealed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman to kindly order initiating a probe in this mega scandal.
They said research and development sector in whole country including Sindh is badly neglected. They said Sindh is particularly marred with high governmental corruption where 90precent of development funds ultimately go into the pockets of corruption mafia. They said the Sindh government also is responsible for rabies deaths and people should lodge direct FIRs against Sindh chief minister Murad Ali Shah and PPP Chairman Bilawal Zardari when anyone dies of rabies due to lack of medical treatment in Sindh province.
They reminded that in the year 2010, the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) Karachi had also announced to set up a serology research laboratory and it had also developed a vaccine but sadly this precious research center was also closed down, because the commission and kick-back mafia in Sindh wanted to import costly vaccines through their favorite suppliers and contractors. They said similarly Sakrand vaccine center was started with an initial cost of Rs60 Crore and after giving salaries to its 35 officers and staff for 12 long years, this center was silently abandoned; sadly when it had already developed vaccines and was in production phase. They appealed for a high-level investigation in the larger public interests into these mega scandals.
The PDP leaders demanded from the government of Sindh to immediately revive both vaccine production centers at Sakrand and DUHS Karachi so that cost-effective vaccine could be provided to the poor masses and precious national resources should be saved from embezzlement of corruption and kick-back mafia. They asked PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to personally look into these scandals and see who is behind tarnishing the image of his party in Sindh and bent to shatter the dream of good governance and transparency in this province.
