JI asks govt to withdraw taxes from power bills

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has warned that forcing people to pay utility bills higher than their income would not be tolerated any longer. Currently, there is no Constitution, law and justice in the country, and country urgently needed to stop the plunder of the masses by the mafias, he said while addressing party office-bearers and delegations at Mansoorah on Tuesday.

Siraj warned that the nation will not accept any lollipops in the name of relief in electricity bills, saying the government will have to withdraw 48 percent taxes of more than 12 types from power bills.

He said the JI will push the public agitation further if the government delayed withdrawing the taxes.

He said if elections are not held within the constitutional period of 90 days, democracy will suffer serious dangers. He lamented that instead of giving relief to the people, the caretaker government is surpassing the previous government in extracting blood of masses, treating them as herds of cattle. He cautioned that the country will never return on the development track until every institution confined itself to its own work.

He said sugar prices went up to Rs200 per kg as a result of its export during the last months of PDM regime, adding that now announcements are being made to import it back, which will only benefit the sugar mafia.

He said the JI will challenge the draconian agreements with the IPPs in the Supreme Court and stage sit-in outside all four governor houses if the government did not reduce electricity bills. As the next plan of action of the protest movement, there will be a wheel jam strike soon.

He warned the caretaker government against ratifying the draconian and dictatorial decisions of the previous government, saying the caretaker government should represent the nation instead of the IMF by providing relief to the people. He said caretakers have no authority to make important decisions, their constitutional and legal responsibility is to cooperate with the Election Commission in conducting a clean and transparent election and entrust the government to the elected representatives of the people. He said JI is leading the people from the front warning the rulers that patience of masses is wearing away fast.

He lamented that the former prime minister put the economy on ventilator and went to London, the former governments of PDM and PPP protected themselves from accountability and left the people in the swamp. He said PDM, PPP and PTI are different sides of the same coin, as their policies continued to be the same and resulted in inflation, unemployment, poverty and plundering of public resources by few thousand elites and bureaucracy.

He demanded former ruling parties should apologise to the nation for their crimes, adding that the anti-people agreements with IPPs must be reviewed. He said imposed rulers never did any better for the people, they only looted public resources and built their properties, sugar mills, and went scot-free. The nation should hold them accountable by the power of vote, warning that testing further the tried cruel landlords and corrupt capitalists is like throwing future generations into slavery.

He said the nation must not accept the slavery of colonialism and IMF any further. He said country needs political stability, problems will be solved only through transparent elections.