Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and minister of foreign affairs, has stated that if the federal government does not provide aid to the flood victims in Sindh as promised, it will be too hard for his party to stay in power.
Additionally, Mr Bhutto-Zardari expressed his displeasure with the way the digital census operation was being carried out, stating it was intolerable that elections in one province were held using data from a separate census while those in other provinces were based on a “flawed” digital census.
The PPP can support a legitimate and scientific census, but not this approach. Bilawal addressed the occasion and said, “We cannot endorse such a census. Yet, he said that the Centre “had no solution to our issues”.
He continued by saying that the only province with concerns about the census was Sindh. “I’ll discuss the census with the Center. We won’t accept the results [if there are any anomalies],” the PPP leader declared.
In his speech following the Sunday launch of the “Subsidy Program: Reimbursement for Wheat Seed,” PPP Chairman addressed these concerns.
According to the plan, Mr Bhutto-Zardari, whose party controls Sindh, allocated Rs. 8.39 billion from the provincial budget to the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) to pay each small farmer who owns up to 12 acres of agricultural land Rs. 5,000 per acre.
He said, reminding the PDM-led government in the centre of its pledge, that it was determined the federal government would offer a grant of Rs4.7 billion and the Sindh government would contribute the remaining Rs8.39 billion since Rs13.5 billion was required to assist the farmers affected by the floods through the subsidy programme.
He said ”If the federation continues to place Sindh and Punjab flood victims at the top of its priority list, a good message will be conveyed. People will question us if the Center doesn’t keep its pledges to the flood victims.”
The PPP chairman stated that the government of Sindh would bring up the matter before the prime minister and in the National Assembly. Additionally, he expressed optimism that the federal government would address their issues.
