ISLAMABAD: In a bid to stabilise the country’s faltering economy, Minister for Defence Khawaja Asif on Monday called for joint efforts to build the economy on a sustainable basis, saying it is the key to putting the country back on the path to progress and prosperity.
Speaking on a point of order in the National Assembly, he said that former prime minister Imran Khan left the economy in the worse shape on all accounts – right from economy to governance – during his party’s three-and-a-half years’ rule.
“Now he [Imran Khan] neither talks about the poor economy nor the five million houses. He has also stopped making the tall claims which he did in his 2014 sit-in and after coming into power,” he regretted.
However, he said that both the government and the opposition will build the ruins left by the Imran Khan administration, adding but there is a need to make concerted efforts to revive the economy as it is not an easy task.
“Both the government and the opposition are duty-bound, and it is a shared responsibility to put the country back on track of economic stability,” he declared.
While referring to the “Charter of Economy” proposal made by the then opposition leader and the incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, he said that the prime minister made all-out efforts to convince Imran Khan for devising a “charter of economy” in the supreme national interest, but Khan paid no heed to it.
Asif said that the past rulers and their allies committed billions of rupees of corruption and destroyed the government departments through their bad governance and incompetence, adding poor governance and rampant corruption are the main reasons, the country is on the brink of economic collapse.
“We will fight a real war and a fake one like Imran Khan did to eradicate the menace of corruption and he [Imran Khan] rather institutionalized corruption which must be rooted out as soon as possible. You won’t find a single person who didn’t commit corruption during the PTI’s rule,” he added.
The minister also came down hard on the former prime minister, saying every day he comes with a narrative and takes frequent U-turns on his statements and announcements, adding Imran Khan’s viewpoint on ‘neutral’ when he was facing the no-confidence motion in National Assembly and his point of view on that very subject before marching onto Islamabad is self-explanatory.
“If the attendance of the parliamentarians in the National Assembly is counted when the PTI was in power, Imran Khan would be below the list which shows how seriously he took the parliamentary business,” he added.
He congratulated Raja Riaz for being appointed as opposition leader in National Assembly – a PTI dissident against whom the party has announced to go to the court after he was handpicked for the coveted slot – and assured him of the government’s full support.
Speaking on the occasion, Riaz said that if Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is reluctant to come to the house, it should submit its proposals on electoral reforms bill which the government is expected to take up in a few days.
At the same time, he said that to stop people like Imran Khan from coming into power, all the political parties should join hands, adding the former prime minister did not fulfil a single promise he had made with the people before coming into power.
The PTI dissident who has been handpicked as opposition leader in NA for rebelling against the PTI, proposed the coalition government for not showing any leniency towards PTI participants of the planned long march, saying the party had nefarious designs, and it must be dealt with iron hands.
Responding to a calling attention notice moved by Dr Fehmida Mirza, Minister for Water Resources Khursheed Shah said that 80 per cent water issues of Sindh could be resolved if the province was provided 10,000 cusecs more water.
He said that from 10,000 to 12,000 cusec water of Sindh’s share was being stolen from Taunsa downstream to Guddu upstream, adding a monitoring committee was constituted to visit various barrages to assess the real situation which would present its report by May 25.
“Once the report is received, we’ll brief the house,” he added.
He was of the view that environmental changes are the main reason for the water shortage.
He said 1991 water accord was inked on distribution among the provinces from out of a total of 114 million acre feet water available at that time, but successive governments failed to construct even one dam for storing water which causes water shortage.
“Mangla dam, river Kabul was also enduring a shortfall compared to the previous year. The country is passing through a difficult phase. Sindh is not demanding more water but it is demanding only drinking water,” he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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