JI to protest outages from tomorrow

Siraj says some elements want to sabotage anti-corruption drive

LAHORE

Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has warned if accountability of the corrupt elite is not held this year, there could be no any accountability in future as well. 

Jamaat-e-Islami has announced launching countrywide protests against loadshedding on Friday and sit-ins in front of power distribution companies’ offices in major cities. Addressing a meeting of the party office-bearers and different delegations at Mansoora on Wednesday, Siraj said some elements were out to sabotage the countrywide drive against corruption which had been going on roads and streets as well in the courts.

However, he said, the drive should not fall prey to politics. Sirajul Haq said wiping out corruption was the most serious and a national issue but some people wanted to curb this voice under unnecessary hue and cry. The JI chief said elements brought up by corruption and those who had made politics a game of wealth were trying their best to sabotage this movement.

He said the JI did not want accountability of any individual or party, it had been demanding across the board accountability of people named in the Panama Leaks, Dubai Leaks, London Leaks and those swallowing bank loans and the recovery of the plundered wealth from them. Sirajul Haq said while the corrupt rulers lived in palaces, general public had to live in huts and slums.

JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch while addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Wednesday,  said JI ameer Senator Sirajul Haq will address a big public meeting at Malakand on Friday where he would give a line of action against the government. 

Liaqat Baloch said the country was facing serious energy crisis due to incompetence of the rulers. In fact, the country’s future had been darkened by the political, social and economic disparities and the rulers’ corruption. Urban areas were braving loadshedding up to sixteen hours a day while the rural areas had to face the problem for up to twenty hours per day. He said the federal minister for Water and Power had admitted that energy crisis could not be overcome even during the coming years. 

Liaqat Baloch said the shortfall of electricity during the year 2013 had been around five thousand mega watt which had now increased to six thousand mega watt. Rulers were making claims that they would add 35,000-mega watt electricity to the system this year while in fact government had missed the opportunities of power generation during its tenure. The government was looting the masses through overbilling and the money received from payment of bills was not being paid to the power companies, he said.

Baloch said in principle, the electricity being purchased valued at Rs 1.36 billion whereas the government was paying Rs 4.5 billion to the power companies. This implied loss of Rs three billion per day. He said the government was simply raising false slogans. He said the cost of Neelum Jhelum project had risen to more than Rs 520 billion, and billions of rupees had been squandered in Nandipur power project. He said around nine hundred factories in Karachi were closed due to energy shortage while more than five hundred industrial units were lying closed in Faisalabad. He said around one lakh workers had been rendered jobless in Gujrat, Gujranwala, and other industrial towns. And the capitalists were transferring their wealth abroad, he said.