LAHORE:Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) ameer Sirajul Haq has said all the foreign loans must be paid back by those ruling elite and bureaucracy who took them without asking the masses, and the cruel practice of squeezing the blood of common people through heavy taxes should be stopped. IMF’s 23rd programme is being implemented but the country witnessed degeneration instead of development which proved those loans were not spent on national development and spent somewhere else, he said while addressing a conference at Jamia Ashrafia and later talking to the media here on Wednesday.
He said the nation demand accountability from the rulers and bureaucrats, as country is gripped by the worst economic crisis in history, the world has reached Mars and getting benefits of Artificial Intelligence revolutions, but the country’s 80pc population is deprived of basic needs of clean water, health, education, roads, electricity, fuel etc. noting that all claims of the finance minister proved false, adding the government still begging from IMF to prepare fiscal budget as the five finance ministers in the last five years served the interests of IMF and Washington. He lamented that the country’s security institutions, political parties and judiciary are struggling for personal interests while people are crushed under devastating poverty, inflation, unemployment and starvation.
Holding the current and previous governments equally responsible for the present situation, he warned that if the masses were not given relief in the budget, there will be nationwide protests. Holding bad governance, corruption and profiteering as the root of the problems, he wondered how the resource-rich Pakistan actually needed foreign loans. He demanded bringing an end to VVIP protocol culture, and equitable distribution of resources to all sections of society. He urged all sections of society, especially the scholars to raise their voices against injustice and cruelty and support Jamaat-e-Islami for changing the outdated system. He said Pakistan was created on the basis of two-nation theory, and Islam is cohesive force keeping national unity and the solution to all its problems.
He said all man-made systems have been tried in 75 years, now people want Islamic system. He said if Islam had been implemented in the country, East Pakistan would not have become Bangladesh. He said the nation was divided on the basis of prejudices, and the oppressive capitalists, landlords and bureaucrats took its advantage by plundering public resources.