Developments funds used to construct schools or hospitals by parliamentarians, paid bureaucrats and constitutional office holders to honor the memory of their father, wife or father-in-law etc are an abuse of power, because this is taxpayers’ money, which cannot be allowed for self glorification. If people in power, want to do such good deeds, they must set up foundations from their own pockets to honor the memory of their loved ones.
It is sad that we have not learnt any lessons from Hindu and Parsi philanthropists of subcontinent, who made hospitals such as Lady Dufferin, Ganga Ram, Ghulab Devi hospitals, which were made from their own resources and public donations, not from tax payers’ account. In our own country Edhi is one such man, followed by others like Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital, Ittefaq Hospital etc which were either self-financed or from voluntary public donations. There is no justification whatsoever for naming the hospital in Sialkot after ‘Khawaja Safdar’, or the one in Lahore after ‘Khawaja Rafique’, nor renaming of an hospital in Islamabad ‘Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’, although this was already named after Quaid-i-Azam, or the university named after Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who collaborated with a usurper Zia-ul-Haq, nor Niaz Stadium after a paid bureaucrat.
Public funds can only be utilised to honor memory of Founding Fathers of the nation, or men who have rendered extraordinary services to masses, beyond and above the call of duty.
SHAHZAD KHALIL,
Sialkot, March 24.