IMF dictating govt, Opp: Siraj

ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq says both the government and the main opposition parties are following the IMF and its dictation.

Addressing a seminar on ‘Protection of Economy’, he said the joint sitting of the Parliament passed the Mutual Legal Assistance bill in pursuit of the IMF agenda.

The seminar was organized by Tanzeem-e-Tajran Pakistan.

“The main opposition parties, including PML-N and PPP, also supported the government on the passage of the bill,” Siraj said. JI central Naib Ameer Mian Muhammad Aslam and President Tanzeem-e-Tajran Pakistan Muhammad Kashif Chaudhry also addressed the seminar.

Siraj regretted that the passage of the mutual legal assistance amounted to accepting the rule of the IMF in letter and spirit.

“The government, the PML-N and the PPP are one when it comes to following the IMF agenda,” he said.

Sirajul said the government had also made many claims about strengthening the national economy but it played havoc with the economy.

“We ask the government to at least bring down the price of roti to the level of the year 2018,” he said fearing that a nose-diving economy also threatens geography of a country. The JI leader said the government and opposition benches instead of understanding seriousness of the situation had made Parliament a joke in the last over two years and during this period they had invented new abuses to humiliate and insult each other.

He said it was useless to expect anything good from the government adding that the nation had committed a blunder by voting the PTI into power and the masses were suffering for that.

He said the government considered traders and business community big hurdles in fulfilling the IMF agenda. “Over 200 experts of the prime minister belong to the IMF and they are responsible for playing havoc with the economy,” he said. Talking about the government’s performance, he said during last over two years, the prices of vegetables and fruit had increased by 100 percent whole those of medicines had surged by 400 percent and that of wheat flour by 28 percent.

He said traders would have to support Jamaat-e-Islami in its struggle to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state. He said there was a need to bring Islamic system in judiciary, economy, education and other fields to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state.