ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, Friday, while announcing to defer his party’s sit-in against inflation and high electricity prices has warned the government to implement the agreement in true letter and spirit; otherwise, his party will waste no time to take to the streets once again.

Addressing a press conference here, Rehman expressed satisfaction over the achievement of his party’s two weeks long sit-in, saying that now the party will focus on membership drive starting from August 14, and will continue a constructive role in national politics. He said that the government has agreed to reduce power prices, and within next 45 days there will be a significant difference.

On July 26, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) commenced its planned sit-in in Islamabad, with a large number of workers gathering at I-8 on the Islamabad Expressway.

Responding to a question, he said that the government has assured his party of addressing the people-specific concerns, limiting government officials to use only up to 1,300 cc vehicles, and make all possible efforts to bring an end to the interest-based financial system. He said that this financial year the government will pay over Rs8,000 billion on account of interest and if, it only cuts down the interest rate by 50 percent it will provide over Rs4,000 billion fiscal space to the government which could be spent on the welfare of the masses.

Rehman warned his party would stage a sit-in again if the government hesitated in implementing the just demands of his party. He said that the government has in principle agreed to bring landlords into the tax net, traders’ friendly tax mechanism will be devised to facilitate traders, a committee will be notified to address the problems being faced by the exporters and the committee will complete the task within a month.

He said that the government has agreed to conduct the forensic audit of the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and K-Electric. Moreover, to bring an end to the monopoly of K-Electric other companies will also be allowed to operate in Karachi which will bring a competition in power production, distribution and transmission.

According to an agreement between Jamaat-e-Islami and the government, the government agreed to reduce taxes on the salaried class by “all possible means”.

The JI also asked the government to end taxes on essential kitchen items such as baby milk, wheat flour and stationary items in a bid to provide some kind of relief to the inflation hit masses, Naeem said and added that the government team explained to JI that this point was already under consideration.

The government also agreed that the price per unit of electricity will be reduced in the next month and a half. “An effective system of income tax on landlords, and landholders will be established,” the agreement reads.

The JI chief expressed his gratitude to the media for providing coverage to their protest sit-in and highlighting the people-specific issues, and asked the government to compel the media outlet owners to pay adequate salaries to the working journalists so that they can meet their both ends as the government was annually providing advertisements of billions of rupees to media houses which in recent times has increased manifold both in private and public sector.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024