PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday asked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi to fulfill his “constitutional and legal responsibility” in accordance with today’s court order and return to his province to administer the oath to CM-elect Sohail Afridi.
“You should go to KP. I will ask the Sindh chief minister to lend you his plane so you can reach KP and fulfil your constitutional and legal responsibility in accordance with the court’s order,” said the PPP chairman while addressing a seminar in Karachi.
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) directed Kundi today to administer the oath to Afridi tomorrow by 4pm. The court’s decision, which was reserved earlier today, came on a PTI application seeking the nomination of the assembly speaker or any other person “considered appropriate” in place of the governor to administer the oath.
In an apparent dig at the Punjab government, Bilawal stated that the PPP is competing internationally and not with any city or province of Pakistan.
Bilawal said the Khairpur Special Economic Zone, established during the tenure of former Sindh chief minister Qaim Ali Shah, had earned international recognition.
He noted that Financial Times had also included the special economic zone among the world’s leading export zones in its Global Free Zones of the Year 2025 awards.
“In the Asia-Pacific category, while the Freeport Area of Bataan was ranked first, Khairpur’s zone was named the runner-up,” he said, adding that “our competition is not with any other city or province, we are competing with the world.”
The PPP scion also noted that the success of the economic zone was not an isolated case, adding that Sindh had also led the way in introducing the concept of public-private partnerships in Pakistan, an idea first outlined in the PPP’s 1993 manifesto by Benazir Bhutto.
“At that time too, our competition wasn’t with any city or province in Pakistan, it was with the world. This is your success, and this is Pakistan’s success,” he added.
The PPP and PML-N were engaged in a war of words over flood relief as Bilawal asserted that the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) was the “sole method” of providing relief to those affected by the recent floods in the country, while PML-N’s Maryam Nawaz accused his party of “politicising” the issue.
Giving further examples of the progress made in Sindh, Bilawal said the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), which provides free treatment, performs the highest number of cardiac procedures in the world.
He added that even in the case of cancer treatment, “In this very city, we offer free cancer treatment, something that is among the costliest procedures in the world. Yet, it is available for free only here, in Karachi. This too is Pakistan’s success,” he said.
Talking about BISP, Bilawal said, “When I was the foreign minister and met leaders from various countries from Africa to Egypt and beyond, they would tell me they were replicating the BISP model,” Bilawal said.
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