Sindh Governor Imran Ismail has said that charitable organisations have assumed the responsibility to provide education and health services to the needy in the country, as the state brazenly failed to fulfil its basic obligations towards the masses.
He said this while addressing as the chief guest at the joint fundraiser of the Green Crescent Trust (GCT) and Shahid Afridi Foundation (SAF). Leading industrialist Sardar Yasin Malik hosted the fundraising event at his residence.
Prominent sports celebrities Shahid Afridi, Jahangir Khan, Sarfraz Ahmed, Sadiq Mohammad, Sohaib Mohammad, Qamar Ibrahim, Kashif Jawwad and others attended the fundraiser whose memorabilia were also auctioned on the occasion to generate funds for the educational welfare projects of the two charities.
The governor also announced Rs 500,000 donation for the same cause, saying that had he been a leading businessmen or industrialist of the country like those present among the audience of the programme, he would have announced much bigger donation for the noble charitable cause being pursued by the two charities.
“What I have been told is that the Green Crescent Trust and Shahid Afridi Foundation have been striving hard to provide education and health services to thousands of needy families, but one should keep in mind that it is basically not the job of these two charities to provide these basic services to the needy in the country. By all means it is the responsibility of the state to provide the same, but it has miserably failed to fulfil all such fundamental obligations,” said the governor.
He said that provision of education, shelter, and employment to the masses were the basic responsibilities of the state, but here in Pakistan these obligations were never fulfilled. “Here the wealth and resources of the state have been plundered, while rights of the poor people have also been denied,” he said.
“The ideal state should be the one where you don’t find anyone to give charitable services if someone starts a welfare school or hospital, as has been the case in Europe, especially in its Scandinavian region. Now we have embarked upon the real challenge of establishing such a state here in Pakistan after winning the election,” he said.
Ismail says the state has miserably failed to fulfil its fundamental obligations
The governor lamented the situation that so many successive governments had rose to power in the country but failed to establish even a single hospital of such top quality, which could compel people from Europe to get treatment in Pakistan.
He said the present government had launched the health insurance card scheme, as each of its beneficiary family would be entitled to get health treatment of up to Rs 750,000 maximum ceiling. “But the beneficiaries of this scheme would be the families who live below the poverty line, as never before they had the resources to get proper health treatment in the country,” he said.
He said that for this purpose, “we need proper hospitals, qualified doctors, paramedics and nurses to treat them”. “For this we once again look towards charities like the SAF and GCT to provide qualified professionals for the health sector,” he said.
GCT Chief Executive Office Zahid Saeed said that 29,000 students were enrolled in more than 150 charitable schools of his trust in the province, as the two charities had joined forces to enrol 100,000 out-of-school children in the province. He said that 40 percent of the 29,000 students of the GCT’s schools were females, while all charitable educational institutions of the trust were operating in the remote and rural parts of Sindh.
He said the joint fundraising event had been organised to pay for the education of at least 6,000 of these children sponsored by the philanthropists and donors concerned.
He said the GCT had also been running water supply projects for more than 770 villages of Thar, while this number would be increased soon in order to facilitate 220,000 people. He said that some of the leading taxpayers of Pakistan also happened to be the patrons and donors of the GCT, whose services were also duly being recognised in the fundraiser.
Speaking on the occasion, Shahid Afridi said that pathetic and alarming situation in the public health and education sectors had compelled him to start working for the greater humanitarian cause, as for him it was high time to pay back to his motherland that gave him name and fame.
Sardar Yasin Malik said that since the time he became a businessmen he had massively contributed towards the bona fide charitable causes in the country, and added that such a charity had enabled him to earn more wealth with the passage of time. Global CEO of SAF Zeeshan Afzal said that the foundation had started its philanthropic work by establishing a charity hospital in Kohat district on his own ancestral land, and added that the hospital had so far provided treatment to 135,000 needy patients of the surrounding areas, including Kohat city.
Sports legends Jahangir Khan and Sarfraz Ahmed said that it was an honour for them to be associated with a charity event organised by the two leading charities of Pakistan that had been doing their best to provide basic necessities of life to people, as the state could not fulfil its responsibilities in this regard.