Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal minced no words in blaming the West for the super floods in Pakistan, refuting that it was a consequence of ‘sins’.

He was speaking at the flood report launching ceremony held in Islamabad on Friday. Explaining his viewpoint, the federal minister said the West did not take the threat of global warming and climate change seriously and caused the world to witness environmental anomalies including recent unprecedented floods in Pakistan.

Ahsan Iqbal highlighted that the country suffered a loss of over $30 billion due to the monsoon-invoked deluge. “Two months of rainfall destroyed everything,” he pointed out, adding that the rate of poverty has increased manifold times owing to the environmental distress and the fear of diseases spreading in the region has strongly gripped the nation. “The inflation rate has jumped too.”

He lamented that the success achieved in 20 years was washed away by the recent deluge in one go. The planning minister hoped that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would allow the government to spend funds from the development budget for flood rehabilitation.

“We are trying to deal with the impact of the catastrophic floods with our limited resources,” Ahsan told the attendees of the event. He detailed that so far the government has distributed Rs75 billion among the flood victims.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-INP