In response to accusations of corruption, Pakistan has digitised flood relief aid and distribution in an effort to make things more open. Geo News says that on the orders of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, it will now be run digitally through the Digital Flood Dashboard.
With the help of the digital dashboard, the public will know how much international flood aid is coming in and where it is going. The decision was made at a meeting on Saturday, which was led by the premier.
A digital flood dashboard made with the most up-to-date technology has all the information about relief efforts and how aid and supplies are being received and given out.
According to Geo News, the prime minister also said that the audit of financial aid for flood victims would be done by the Accountant General Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) and the most reputable auditing organisations in the world to ensure transparency.
He also said that roads, bridges, and the power grid should be fixed as quickly as possible and that the restoration of services in the affected districts should be looked at. He made sure that the victims had everything they needed to live.
Geo News says that Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail said that the government had set aside $70 billion to help flood victims and get them back on their feet.
Ismail said in a TV interview that the people who were hurt would get an extra 50 billion dollars. He said that both internal and external audits will be done on every dollar that comes from abroad. He also said that 33 million people lived outside of the country.
He said that APTMA had given $400 million to the Prime Minister’s Flood Relief Fund and would give another $1 billion. This is what Geo News reported. He said that the prime minister would soon meet with business and industry leaders.
The federal minister for railroads, Khawaja Saad Rafique, thanked all the countries that helped Pakistan during its hard times. Geo News says that APTMA Chairman Dr. Gohar Ejaz said the group would also give 150,000 packets of food to flood victims.
Sindh now has a total of 621 people who have died because of floods. Twelve more people have died in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 621.
After floods destroyed Dadu’s first line of defence, the Chak-Nizam bridge, on Sunday, the government moved on to Plan B. As part of this plan, a dike is being built along the banks of the Burda Canal to protect the city.
Authorities said that a 15-foot-high dyke is being built with heavy machinery. They also said that flash floods from the Manchar Lake had damaged the Dadu ring bund, which put the city in danger.
Manchar Lake, which is the largest freshwater lake in the country, keeps getting bigger. Rising floodwaters have destroyed the city’s first line of defence, so the government, with the help of army troops, has been working to strengthen the remaining embankments.
Thousands of people are living in tents or waiting for shelter under the open sky along the main road to Hyderabad. Water from the flood could be seen on both sides of the road for kilometres.
People could be seen riding rickshaws, vans, and small trucks out of the city by the hundreds. Geo News says that many other people and their animals were also seen staggering along the road in the hot sun.
Because there was so much flooding, the government also had to move about 400 prisoners from the Dadu district jail to the Hyderabad prison.
While this was going on, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif gave an order to use all available resources to protect a 500KV grid station in Dadu that may be in danger of flooding.
The PM Office’s media arm says that he told senior civil and military officials to act right away to stop flooding from affecting the grid station.
