JUI-F centenary event to cost more than Rs100m

‘All 1.6m party members to donate Rs100 each’

AZAKHEL: Billed by a leader of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) as the biggest ever gathering in the history of the world, the party’s three-day centenary conference to be held here from April 7-9 could cost anywhere from Rs100 million to Rs160 million.

The claim was made by Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, the secretary general of the JUI-F and deputy chairman of the Senate of Pakistan while talking to journalists at Azakhel, the site of the forthcoming event in Nowshera district, on Saturday.  “Three tour million people would attend the conference. It will be our show of strength to remind the rulers of Pakistan and the outside powers that this country was made in the name of Islam.

The Ulema helped create Pakistan and they would defend it at any cost,” the
Senator from Balochistan declared.

He spoke in presence of the JUI-F head Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who also highlighted the aims of the international centenary conference.

The statistics given by the JUI-F’s media head Abdul Jalil Jan were ambitious and impressive. “The venue is stretched over 10,000 kanals of land. The car parking can hold 100,000 vehicles. The makeshift hospital and six dispensaries would be manned by 1,000 doctors. We would have 8,000 toilets, six tubewells and 25,000 volunteers performing security duties at the venue,” he said.

Asked about the cost of hosting such a huge event, Abdul Jalil Jan explained that the final figures would be worked out when the conference is over on April 9, but the expenses would most likely be more than Rs100 million. “Our party leadership had decided that every member would donate Rs100 to cover the cost of this event. As we have 1.6 million party members, we are expecting collection of Rs160 million funds. This amount hasn’t been collected yet,” he hastened to add.

According to Abdul Jalil Jan, the party’s chapters in all four provinces were supposed to pool funds of Rs20 million each. He said Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan collected more than Rs20 million each while Punjab managed Rs5.5 million. “Besides, we hosted donors’ conferences in Karachi, Sukkur and Peshawar and got donations of more than Rs250 million,” he added.

When asked as to why the figure of Rs160 million is being mentioned as the total cost of the conference, Abdul Jalil Jan argued that this was due to the JUI-F directions to its members to donate Rs100 each. “As we have 1.6 million party members, we were hoping to raise Rs160 million in this manner. Many started believing that this amount of Rs160 million is also the cost of holding the conference,” he added.

He said the real cost would be known once the conference is over. He argued that hosting such a massive conference with more than 3-4 million participants would certainly cost a lot of money, but the entire amount is being collected through donations by party members and well-wishers.