Caretaker Chief Minister Balochistan Sardar Saleh Bhootani had separate meetings with the caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro and President Pervez Musharraf lately. The meetings were quite successful in a manner that the caretaker Balochistan chief minister informed the president as well as the caretaker prime minister about the financial crisis that the province is facing.
According to the caretaker chief minister a committee has been formed comprising of representatives from the centre as well as the province to solve the issue of gas development surcharge and royalty. Whereas an assurance has been given to increase Rs30 billion in the fund for the construction of National highways and their rehabilitation in addition to an allocation of Rs15-16 billion for compensation for the flood victims.
Addressing a press conference after reaching Quetta from Islamabad the caretaker chief minister Sardar Saleh Bhootani said that after an increase of Rs30 billion an amount of Rs1 trillion will be spent on the ongoing road projects in the province.
On the other hand just like the other parts of the province load shedding and floor crises continued to haunt the people of the province including the provincial capital. All the various political parties too have came out on the streets to protest continued floor crisis in the province. Protest demonstrations are being carried out province wide.
In spite of the severe flour crisis daily thousands of flour bags are being exported to Afghanistan to add insult to injury a lot greater quantity of flour is being smuggled to Afghanistan through the Chaman border. In just a couple of days time the frontier corps seized 52 truckloads of wheat that was being smuggled to Afghanistan. Each truck carried 30 tons of wheat. In this hour of serious ongoing flour crisis throughout the country in just one day 30 trucks loaded with 900 tons of wheat were exported to Afghanistan through the Chaman border.
The All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) staged a protest demonstration against the spiraling inflation, gas and power outages and flour crisis. During the protest the demonstrators chanted slogans against the government and demanded immediate resignations.
On Saturday the APDM staged a demonstration that was participated by workers of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Balochistan National Party, Tehreek-e-Insaf and National Party. Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party Provincial President Usman Kakar addressing the protest rally criticised the government for the inflation and the flour crisis.
Similarly, Dr Ishaq Baloch of National Party in his speech lamented the poor state of affairs and the dearth of wheat in the country. Balochistan National Party leader Ghulam Nabi Marri said that in Balochistan and in the tribal areas the situation is very critical. Leader of Tehreek-I-Insaf Irfan Ali said that to divert public attention from ‘real issues’ the government is creating non-issues.
Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party leader Rauf Lala said that the real fight is between the democratic and non-democratic forces and the democratic forces will win. He strongly condemned the treason cases registered against the provincial president of the party Usman Kakar and five other leaders.
On the other hand inspector general frontier corps Saleem Nawaz said that the provincial government has deployed FC at all the flourmills and godowns in the province. In the whole province FC has been deployed on 55 flourmills and 44 godowns so as to monitor hoarding and black marketeering of flour. He told that in the provincial capital Quetta FC has been deployed at 33 flourmills and 3 godowns.
He told that in the last two days bid to smuggle 31 tons of wheat was foiled and 52 trucks were seized.
In spite of all the tall claims severe flour crisis continues in the province and a lot many steps need to be taken.
