PPP senator demands removal of health minister Mustafa Kamal
Waqar Mehdi cites alleged corruption in Hajj and Umrah vaccination and child deaths at PIMS as grounds for dismissing the federal health minister.
Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Waqar Mehdi has demanded that federal health minister Mustafa Kamal be removed from his ministry, citing alleged corruption in Hajj and Umrah vaccination and the deaths of children at the PIMS hospital in Islamabad.
Express News reported on 14 November that Mehdi, in a statement, said there was no justification for keeping Kamal in the post and that he should be dismissed immediately.
The senator said billions of rupees were at stake in what he called corruption in vaccination arrangements for pilgrims, and asked who would answer for the deaths of children at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. Both the PIMS deaths and the vaccination matter, he said, were failures of the health ministry.
Mehdi said the alleged corruption in the vaccination of pilgrims was a serious matter and that an account of it should be given.
Kamal, he said, was practising a politics of hatred and division instead of attending to his own performance, and should look after his ministry rather than give advice to others.
According to the report, the senator said the federal minister was damaging the constitution and federal harmony. Mehdi said Kamal showed an appetite for criticising Sindh but no concern for the problems of his own ministry, and asked him to stop his statements against Sindh and answer for the ministry's failures.
Mehdi urged the federal government to take notice of Kamal's remarks, which he described as inflammatory, and said serious questions were being raised about the ministry that had to be answered.
If the federal government wants to keep its reputation, Mehdi said, it should not delay the removal any further.
Express News carried no response from Mustafa Kamal or from the health ministry to the senator's statement.
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