Bilawal vows to give interest-free loans, land ownership rights if elected to power

GHOTKI: Chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has announced that if the nation gives him a mandate in the upcoming general elections, he will provide interest-free loans and land ownership rights to build houses across Pakistan to families who have been living on government land for generations but are deprived of ownership rights, and that women will be made owners of such houses.

Condemning the “anti-people” actions of the PTI government, he said that the selected prime minister deceived the nation by making a false promise to provide 10 million jobs and build five million houses.

According to the press release issued by media cell Bilawal House, the PPP chairman participated in the inauguration ceremony of construction of houses for 82,746 flood victims in Ghotki district under Sindh People's Housing for Flood Affectees (SPHF) and giving them ownership rights of residential plots. Under SPHF, two million houses are being constructed for flood-affected families across Sindh.

Addressing the event, he said that PPP governments have always introduced such revolutionary programmes, whose aim is to combat poverty. He said the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), the programme of giving interest-free loans to women for business, the Peoples Poverty Reduction Programme (PPRP), and now helping the flood-affected families in building houses and giving them the ownership rights of the land of such houses are similar measures. “We are not only fighting flood devastations, we are fighting poverty by building houses for the victims simalteniously,” he added.

Talking about the Sindh government’s initiative for flood victims, Bilawal said that after the floods last year, whenever he went, everyone had one demand to help him to build the ruined house. "Within a span of 10 months, we planned a programme to build houses for flood victims, arranged funding for these houses at the global level and ensured the implementation of the programme,” he said, adding that under the project, the construction of two million houses of flood victims has been started across Sindh. “Before [before I came to power] there was an elderly prime minister, who in his election campaign promised to build 1 crore jobs and 5 million houses to the people. He got 4 years but did not build even one house.”

"We got power for a few months, but this work (construction of houses for flood victims) has already started. [Of them] some houses have been built, others are being built, and the rest will be built soon," he pointed out.

Foreign Minister Bilawal said that PPP was unnecessarily criticized in the past that it did not know how to govern, adding that the character assassination of the PPP was based on total lies.

While announcing the establishment of the IBA Sukkur campus in Ghotki, he urged the chief minister to implement the project before the end of the tenure of the present provincial government.

Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, MNAs Sardar Muhammad Bux Mahar and Sardar Khalid Ahmed Loond, provincial ministers Sharjeel Inam Memon, Nasir Hussain Shah, Abdul Bari Pitafi, Jam Ikramullah Dharejo and Mukesh Kumar Chawla, MPA Suhail Anwar Siyal, District Chairman Bangal Khan Mahar and other leaders were also present.