‘Long march’ eclipsed Yasin Malik issue, says Ahsan

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, while slamming the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf(PTI) chief Imran Khan for “taking attention away from Yasin Malik issue” said on Thursday that it “should have been highlighted” globally.

The federal minister said the issue could not get the “attention it deserved” as the PTI had stormed the country with “violent protests”, adding that the former prime minister had “facilitated” India with his “propaganda” in dodging global condemnation.

“He was capturing the news the whole day and it seems like, the moment, Imran’s aim was achieved, he called off the protest and went back home,” he maintained.

Iqbal said that the PTI leader was playing with the survival of Pakistan for his politics and assisting the enemies of the country. Terming Imran, a “tried, tested, and failed” political personality, Iqbal said, he has been damaging the country’s image and turning out to be a global embarrassment. “He is working to implode state institutes internally,” he added.

He said Imran Khan’s protest was a part of the enemy’s hybrid warfare campaign against Pakistan to create polarization in the society and country’s institutions. He said that Imran Khan was habitual of doing so as he launched so-called Azadi March in 2014 when the Chinese President was arriving in Islamabad to initiate China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

During the past four years, the PTI did not approve any new project under the CPEC and even stopped funding to already approved projects, of which, ML-1 railway track from Karachi to Rawalpindi is a prime example as the PTI did not start works on the project and now cost has increased manifold. Under CPEC, nine economic zones were designed which were to be completed from 2020-2025 but the PTI government did not let any of the projects complete.

The present government has decided to launch the CPEC projects with full zeal and the government is going to start dragging on Gwadar port which has been ruined by Imran Khan-led government. The government is holding a fortnightly review meeting on all the projects under the CPEC.

He said through heavy debt, Imran Khan pushed the country to surrender its sovereignty and now the people of the country are paying the cost of the PTI’s incompetence in the shape of rising inflation.

The minister accused Imran Khan of “leaving the state treasure empty”, saying that “for the first time in 75 years, the finance division has allocated zero budget for development projects” in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year because of the former prime minister. He said Imran Khan has failed to answer in the foreign funding case.

He said that despite the fact all state institutions were behind Imran Khan during his four year tenure in government but due to his absolute incompetence he badly failed in bringing any positive change in the country. He maintained that media and opposition parties were barred from criticising Imran Khan during these four years but even so his government failed in taking off.

He said PTI leadership can’t even count a single project that was conceived and completed in these four years. Contrary to this, the PML-N government completed many projects in just two years during their previous tenure.

He said that the present government was making all-out efforts to put the economy of the country on the path of recovery, for which the government has planned to hold a turnaround conference on June 15, 2022, saying the country could be turnaround but to achieve this goal the country needs national unity.

The minister said that economic development needs consistent economic policies but in Pakistan unfortunately only military dictators mange to rule the country for longer terms no political leader even completed five years’ constitutional term, saying dictators instead of reviving the economy run the national economy as a foreign aid country by receiving easy dollars on this account or that.

While during political governments’ tenure some forces used all resources to destabilize the country as a result the country failed to become an export-led economy owing to which the country was facing severe kind of balance of payment issues.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022