ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Saturday announced to hold a protest march at the Constitution Avenue in Islamabad against current wave of inflation and unprecedented rise in petroleum prices.
“Other parties will be invited to participate in the protest march as the protests against the government for inflation and price hike are starting from Islamabad,” said former deputy chairman Senate and finance secretary PPP Saleem Mandviwalla, while addressing a press conference on Saturday along with Senator Taj Haider and Senator Palwasha Khan.
He said the PTI-led government’s ministers were all the time involved in leveling allegations against others instead of searching and realising their theft in the foreign funding case as their bankers admitted that there was foreign funding in their accounts, while our bankers denied any such funding in our accounts. He said instead of being accountable, the PTI ministers were involved in making cases and allegations against others.
He said Minister of State for Information Farrukh Habib appears on TV talk shows on a daily basis to defend the foreign funding case against his party leadership and tells new stories. “The foreign funding case has been going on since 2014 and instead of giving an explanation, he makes accusations against others to cover up his theft, and submitted fake documents to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP),” he said.
He said a case against PTI’s Akbar S Babar has been filed, so they should clear themselves first in the ECP.
Senator Saleem Mandviwalla said the government has promulgated the NAB ordinance, which has been challenged by all the parties. “The NAB Amendment Ordinance has been promulgated two days before the retirement of the chairman of NAB,” he said. He said the NAB infiltrated private transactions, causing loss of trillions of rupees to the country.
He said the government should sit down with the opposition and talk about this ordinance and build a consensus. “The purpose of bringing a unilateral ordinance is to benefit only one individual and we will fight it in the Parliament as this ordinance has no future,” he said.
Senator Palwasha Khan said the PPP condemned the increase in petroleum products and wanted to know what were the terms and conditions, which will be approved by the IMF. “It was no coincidence that the country, institutions and economy have been isolated and the institutions for our defense were being made controversial.” she said.
She questioned the government’s move to conduct interviews of officers for the post of DG ISI, saying: “What provision of the Constitution should apply to this government as this is the conspiracy that we suspected from day one.”
She demanded that the names of all the cabinet members be included in the ECL as they could flee the country at any time.
Senator Taj Haider said the NAB Amendment Ordinance is unconstitutional, adding this government has brought every institution of Pakistan to the brink of destruction.