Shehbaz Sharif says Imran defaming institutions to avoid punishment n PM refuses to inaugurate flood
relief dashboard over shortcomings in digital design.

ISLAMABAD   -   Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Monday strong­ly denounced Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s campaign against na­tional institutions.

In a statement issued by the PM Office on Mon­day, he said those who are caught red handed now want to avoid pun­ishment for their crime by defaming the insti­tutions. The prime min­ister regretted the con­spirator is now plotting to spread chaos in the in­stitutions. He said those who played with the na­tional interests by making changes in the diplomatic cipher will have to face the law. Shehbaz Sharif said law is equal for all and nobody is above it.

‘Real-time monitoring of flood relief activities’

Also, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday expressed displeasure over the production of a digital dashboard and re­fused to inaugurate it due to ba­sic lapses. He said it was not up to international standards.

“This dashboard is not what I need or my nation needs”, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif commented while speaking af­ter a briefing given to him at PM House in Islamabad.

The dashboard was prepared by the Ministry of IT and Min­ister for IT Aminul Haq insist­ed to the PM to go ahead with opening of the board and flaws would be rectified in the days to come. However, the PM re­fused to inaugurate and said the board must be improved and contain real time informa­tion about floods, weather, data of relief work, and other related information.

The PM directed the authori­ties concerned to improve the flood relief digital dashboard by adding more required features believing that a dashboard of in­ternational standard would en­sure better coordination among institutions and enhance the country’s credibility.

The prime minister, in a brief­ing on the dashboard being de­veloped to provide real time in­formation about the flood relief support and its usage, instruct­ed to add more features like the weather alert and others to make it a “world class” plat­form containing all relevant in­formation.

“We should design a dash­board which the whole nation should be proud of,” said the prime minister.

The prime minister exem­plified a dashboard on dengue outbreak by the Punjab govern­ment during his tenure as chief minister, which he said had got international recognition as it had contained all the relevant information like hotspots and the provided facilities.

He pointed out the shortcom­ings in the design and called for further improvements to enable it to meet the nation’s needs and effectively reflect the coordinated efforts being made by the government for relief and rehabilitation of the flood-stricken people.

Prime Minister Shehbaz said the flood relief dashboard must contain all the relevant infor­mation about every item where the relief items like quilts and baby food was sent and where it came from.

He said the government would provide all required support for development of the dashboard which should not be a make­shift arrangement rather a facil­ity usable even for decades.

The prime minister said the government would hold a con­ference on Thursday inviting friendly countries and inter­national organizations extend­ing flood relief support to brief them about the latest situation and country’s future needs.

Briefing the meeting, Chair­man of National Disaster Man­agement Authority Lt Gener­al Akhtar Nawaz said currently around 80,000 more tents were required in the flood-hit areas.

He said the countries in­cluding China, Turkey and some embassies had indicat­ed for arranging tents from the local market.

He said as per a survey, the flood-hit people had prior­itized food over health and shelter which necessitated measures to arrange food for the flood survivors.

Chairman of National Flood Response Coordination Centre Major General Zafar Iqbal said flood water was stagnant in two districts of Balochistan.

He said since August 31, 70% water situation has improved and that it would take anoth­er two to three weeks to re­cede water. Chairman of Nation­al Highway Authority Khurram Agha told the meeting that the flood-hit communication net­work has been restored.

He said during the rehabilita­tion process, the NHA was pri­oritising the routes of key im­portance particularly those connecting the provinces