Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that President Asif Ali Zardari had been advocating reconciliation well before taking over the office of President and he is still pursuing that policy. He was speaking as chief guest at an Iftar-dinner hosted by PPP District Malir in Gulshan-e-Hadeed on Wednesday night.
He recalled when President Asif Ali Zardari had invited all political parties to sit together and redress the problems of people. He said PPP workers must have a lot of questions, grievances, complaints and expectations. Earlier they had expectations with Shaheed Quaid Benazir Bhutto and now with PPP Chairperson President Asif Ali Zardari and we will come up to the same.
Qaim Ali Shah said that President Asif Ali Zardari has completed his one year as President and during this time he worked for the uplift and well-being of the people as per party's manifesto. He pointed out that the President won over two third majority from whole of Pakistan and it is to be acknowledged that people of Sindh gave historic vote for PPP.
He said that effort of General Pervez Musharraf (Retd) had been to stall PPP from winning majority and is restricted to only 50 seats, but the people thwarted all such machinations. The Chief Minister said that PPP has always promoted the politics of reconciliation and despite clear majority in Sindh, it took MQM, ANP, PML(F) and NPP along so that we fully concentrated on problems of people.
He described the formation of National Finance Commission an important achievement of the present government while the Thar Coal resources would be fully utilised to meet the power requirement of the country and Sindh province. He said that it has been due to the efforts of President Asif Zardari that years old Thar Coal issue was resolved.
In this regard the Board constituted, is headed by Chief Minister Sindh, as Chairman while Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf is Vice Chairman. Recounting the achievements of President Zardari, he said that it was for the first time that the President gave importance to women and directed allotment of 25 acres of land to each of them and so far 40,000 acres of land have been distributed while this year 100,000 acres is to be distributed.
He recalled the saying of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that those who plough the land should be its owner and he gave his 3000 acres of land to the farmers. Qaim Ali Shah said that government land belongs to people and it is being given to them.
He informed that 3.5 million deserving women are being paid Rs 1000 per month under Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Income Support Program and in Sindh 800,000 women were benefited from this programme. This year, he said, Rs 5 billion have been earmarked for the programme so that maximum number of women are benefited. He referred to Rs 2 billion Ramazan package for the poor and said that flour, which was being sold at Rs 30 per kg was sold to them at Rs 10 per kg.
He also referred to measures being taken against unemployment and said that within a year 40,000 jobs were provided on merit while 40,000 youth were being provided training in technical institutions under Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Youth Development Programme. The Chief Minister told the gathering that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani have decided to provide 10 percent ownership to workers in major organisations like PIA, Port Qasim, Steel Mill etc.
"We will neither sell the organisations nor privatise them", he announced. Among others, Professor N D Khan Mufti Ferozuddin, Raja Razaq, Mir Ismail Brohi also spoke on the occasion. The Iftar-dinner was also attended by Sajid Jokhio, Rashid Rabbani, Waqar Mehdi, Siddiq Abu Bhai, Shamshad Qureshi and others.
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