No right to rule if people not given relief: PM Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said his government will go to any extent to provide relief to masses and check price hike of essential commodities.

He expressed these views while chairing a meeting of his government team on Saturday with reference to key commodities’ prices, including flour, sugar, cooking oil and rice. The meeting took stock of the steps for bringing prices of these items down under the premier’s directions. Imran was apprised of the measures so far taken and being taken in relation to checking the price spiral of goods and bringing them to an affordable level. He said that extremely poor families must be given ration under the Ehsaas Programme.

Those in attendance were Adviser to PM on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Minister for Economic Affairs Division Hammad Azhar, Special Assistant to PM Dr Sania Nishtar, Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Zaidi, PTI leader Jahangir Tareen, Shahbaz Gill and USC chairman. It was learnt that while speaking on the occasion, the premier emphasised that they had assumed power for the betterment of the masses and that the inflation was mainly due to corruption of the past government and hoarders and profiteers also had their role in the issue. Imran Khan gave some instructions to the adviser on finance and said that if the government could not show compassion towards the poor and downtrodden, then it had no right to stay. In a previous such meeting, the prime minister had directed the provinces to take measures for provision of relief to masses. He said funds may be deducted from any other sector to help those who don’t have the purchasing power of food items.

Meanwhile, the prime minister took to Twitter to welcome the Bangladesh team to Pakistan. He tweeted, “I welcome the Bangladesh cricket team to Pakistan and resumption of Test cricket in Pakistan.”

In a related development, the prime minister directed the authorities to immediately resolve the officers’ promotion matter within 60 days. According to a statement released by the Prime Minister Office (PMO), the prime minister has directed the authorities to immediately resolve the pending promotions of employees working in federal ministries and divisions. According to the circular released by the Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit (PDU), Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed authorities to submit a report after resolving all promotion matters.

Over 7,000 cases of officers’ promotions are pending while 21-cadre officers are waiting for their promotion from 1991, said a report by PM Delivery Unit. Likewise, 2,290 officers are waiting for their promotion in the Finance Division and 1,364 promotion cases are pending in Commerce Ministry. In Petroleum Ministry, 809 and 615 promotion cases are pending in Power Division.

Similarly, 111 promotion applications are pending in Interior Ministry, while 344 in Ministry of Defence Production. The promotion of 20,000 officers will also resolve the seniority issues, said the PM Delivery Unit.

Earlier in January, Imran Khan had directed to urgently fill the vacant posts in federal ministries and divisions. The data of 129,300 vacancies in the federal ministries and divisions were compiled by the PM Delivery Unit.