Bilawal urges PM to take allies on board and avoid fresh feuds with opposition

KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said the Prime Minister should first take his allies into confidence and resolve matters through consultation and understanding, rather than starting fresh disputes with the opposition.

He was addressing a ceremony at the Chief Minister House marking the completion of one million homes under the Sindh Peoples Housing for Flood Rehabilitation (SPHF) project.

According to Bilawal Bhutto, the project began with a natural disaster, but it also gave people economic security during periods of unemployment. He claimed that the construction of one million homes also created an equal number of employment opportunities.

He said the federal government had taken responsibility for building houses in Balochistan, where 30,000 homes were built in three years, while the Sindh government built one million homes in three years. He said that during talks with international institutions, the federal government had been declaring the provincial government incompetent and asking for the funds itself. He thanked the World Bank for placing its trust in the Sindh government.

Bilawal Bhutto asked the Chief Minister of Sindh to invite international institutions to audit the project. He claimed there had been no corruption in the project.

He said the country faced an economic crisis and that politics had to be reset to deal with it, which required all parties to work together rather than fight. In his view, relief for the public was not possible without the government and opposition working together.

Bilawal Bhutto thanked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and said that their meeting had agreed that all work would be carried out jointly. He also said the project was the largest land transfer since 1970, and that land ownership had been granted to women along with the homes.