Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif on Friday said that corruption, embezzlement and plunder of rulers of Islamabad had caused despondency, unease and hatred among the people of Pakistan during the last four and a half years.

Addressing assembly members belonging to various districts here on Friday, the chief minister said that, in the so-called democratic system, the poor found it difficult to have two meals a day and over two hundred and fifty thousand workers had become jobless due to worst loadshedding of electricity. He said that the incompetent rulers had widened the gulf between the rich and the poor and it had become almost impossible for the poor to keep body and soul together.

Shahbaz Sharif said that lava of hatred was simmering in the people over the criminal negligence of the corrupt Zardari gang to the people’s issues. He said that those practicing politics in the name of reconciliation had become the worst blot in the face of democracy. He said that politicians, judiciary, generals and elite had not discharged their national responsibility during the last 65 years.

He said “Zardari system” operating in the garb of democratic dispensation had further increased the distance between the rulers and the masses. Unfortunately, the people had been deprived of the fruits of democracy and the rulers had only filled their pockets during the last four and a half years, he added.

Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif said that, during the last four and a half years, the hopes, aspirations and desires of the people had died and the life of the masses had been poisoned by the antiquated system. He said that the wave of despondency, among the masses, calls for critical thinking by the politicians as well as the elite. He noted that, because of social and economic degradation, extremism was getting stronger which was generated by poverty and unemployment. He emphasized that those societies which did not provide social and economic justice, got decimated and the people brought incompetent and unjust rulers before the court of accountability. He said that neither extremism could be eliminated from the society nor progress and prosperity achieved without provision of social and economic justice. He said that, due to bad governance and loot and plunder of incompetent rulers, the nation was facing problems and difficulties which could only be resolved by getting rid of corrupt rulers and eliminating antiquated and rotten system.

The chief minister said that Zardari gang had established new records of corruption due to which the national economy was facing ruination, whereas national institutions were being destroyed deliberately. He said that the problems, challenges and dangers being facing the country were due to the wrong policies and corruption of the rulers. He said that had the right decisions been taken for the welfare and progress of the people, our cities and villages would not have been enveloped in darkness.

Shahbaz Sharif regretted that injustice and cruelty was being committed against Punjab with regard to loadshedding, and people had become especially angry due to agonizing loadshedding at the time of Sehr and Iftar but the rulers residing in air-conditioned rooms of Islamabad, neither feared public protests, nor were interested in solving problems of the masses. It had created great distance between the rulers and the people, he added.

The chief minister emphasized that loot and plunder and nepotism had reached their climax and the gobbling up of government resources had brought the country to the brink of disaster. He underscored that the scourge of extremism had made the country hollow, whereas unemployment had resulted in massive increase in poverty in the country. He said that loans of billions of rupees were being acquired on daily basis to run the country.

Shahbaz Sharif underlined the need for strict accountability to eliminate loot and plunder, saying obsolete system, which had failed to provide relief to the masses, should now be done away with and collective efforts made to achieve the goal of progress and prosperity.

As a nation, he said, we would all have to change our way of living and, by adopting simplicity and austerity, would have to rely on our own resources, along with ensuring provision of help and succor to the blighted nation.

The chief minister also had an exchange of views with the assembly members regarding development projects and other related issues in their constituencies.