KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami, Chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Monday threatened nationwide protests if the government reneges on its commitments to cancel IPP contracts, implement tax cuts, and reduce energy tariffs.

“The government must make the IPPs agreements public,” Hafiz Naeem demanded during a press conference at Idara Noor-e-Haq, emphasising that the deadline for enforcing the agreement between the government and JI to cancel the IPPs contracts is fast approaching.

In case the government backs out of the agreement, he said the JI had readied a plan to pressure the authorities into cancelling the IPPs contracts, cut in tax rate and electricity and fuel oil prices. He hinted at holding a long march to Islamabad, besides general strikes.

JI leader Hafiz Naeem made it clear that the interior minister planed to visit Mansora - the party’s central headquarters in Lahore - to discuss progress on the agreement. However, he emphasised that the public needed a real action, not just announcement specifically. He said that a relief for the masses and the cancellation of agreements with the IPPs would be more important.

About the prevailing situation in Karachi, he said the city was wearing a dirty look with mountains of garbage all over. “Once the city of lights is now in tatters with broken roads washed away by monsoon showers,” he showed sorrow.

He pledged that the JI would continue its rights movement for Karachi and its people, criticizing the ruling PPP for “plundering” the metropolis. He also smelled corruption in the Sindh government’s “Click projects”, saying the industry was provided with costly electricity while the cottage industry was falling from historic production costs.

He alleged that the ruling PPP of “abuse” of power and “stealing” the city’s mayorship with the help of ECP. He also implicated the MQM for the city’s rundown state, saying that both parties had been imposed on the citizens as illegitimate representatives.

Hafiz Naeem accused the government of creating hurdles for the smooth decentralization of the local government system across the country, announcing his party would soon seek the court’s intervention to complete the governance.

Citing the JI membership polls, he claimed that a majority of the public opinion indicated his party as the only problems shooter in the country. “People continue to reply to the party’s call for membership overwhelmingly,” he said the female and male were equally responding to be the JI’s part.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024