Syed Mustafa Kamal, a member of Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) party, said that while Karachi was still reporting news of children dying after falling into open gutters, India, on the other hand, was making tremendous achievements, including landing on the moon.
While addressing the National Assembly on Wednesday, Kamal said, "The condition of Karachi is such that while the world is going to the moon, here many children are falling into the open gutters and dying. On the same screen, there is news that India landed on the moon, and about two seconds later, the news is that a child fell into an open gutter in Karachi and died. This is the same news every third day."
On August 23, 2023, India's Chandrayaan-3 mission created history with the successful soft landing on Moon's surface.
India is now the first nation to reach near the Moon's unexplored South Pole and ranks amongst the top four nations to carry out a soft landing on the lunar surface.In his address, Kamal also said that Karachi is the "revenue engine" of Pakistan. "The country has two seaports, which are also located in Karachi. The city is a gateway to the entire of Pakistan, Central Asia and Afghanistan. We collect about 68 per cent of the revenue from the city and give it to the nation," he said.
"But for 15 years, Karachi was not given even a bit of fresh water. And the water which came, was stolen and hoarded by the water tanker mafia, and was sold to the people of Karachi," he noted.
He also highlighted that 26.2 million children in Pakistan do not go to school.
"This number is more than the population of 70 countries. So many uneducated children will destroy our entire economic development," Kamal added.
In Sindh alone, there are 48,000 schools, but out of those, 11,000 are 'ghost schools'" the lawmaker said, adding that 70 lakh children in the province did not go to schools.
According to Unicef, Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children, with an estimated 22.8 million children aged 5-16 not attending school, representing 44 per cent of the total population in this age group.
In Sindh, 52 per cent of the poorest children (58 per cent girls) are out of school, and in Balochistan, 78 per cent of girls are out of school.
Meanwhile, Pakistan continues to face economic challenges, including high inflation and mounting debt.
Repeated delays in implementing the International Monetary Fund Extended Fund Facility program and the associated decline in external financing inflows saw foreign reserves fall to critically low levels, amid high inflation and sharp currency depreciation, according to the World Bank.
