JI blames govt for enslaving nation to IMF, WB

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq said the present and past governments had enslaved the nation to international financial institutions by crippling the economy.

“The same ruling elite representing the PTI and past ruling parties threw national integrity and economy at stake by borrowing huge money from the World Bank (WB) and IMF, not for national development but for luxurious living of state and bureaucracy, depriving the masses from basic needs and squeezing taxes from them to pay back,” he said while addressing a large public meeting at Company Bagh, Sargodha on Sunday in connection with JI’s public campaign for mobilising masses against rising corruption, bad governance, inflation and unemployment.

Siraj said Prime Minister Imran Khan hoodwinked the nation by promising change in system but merely changed the bureaucrats to suit his government’s bad governance. Imran badly failed to deliver as he continued with the same corrupt people and the policies to plunder public money, he said, adding that what to talk of health, education, agriculture and industrial sectors when the masses were deprived of even the portable water, atta, and basic food items.

To deceive the masses, the PM continued chanting slogans of not giving NRO to political opponents despite that he was himself enjoying the government as a result of NRO. “People want food and not hollow slogans and false promises,” he reminded the PM, saying Imran Khan had taken so many U-turns that now it was difficult to count.

He (Imran Khan) was leading the same bunch of corrupt mafias plundering the public money for last many decades at the cost of poor masses who had been forced to commit suicide and crimes, he said, adding that despite making tall claims for two decades, Imran Khan miserably failed on every front. The ruling coterie in the PTI was no more than guest actors, who could flee the country with their brief cases anytime, he said. They must know that their days were numbered as people would not let them flee the country, he said.

The time, he said, had come to get rid of the decades old corrupt system and the same families representing it, adding that the thieves should be treated as thieves whether in the government or opposition parties. “The masses will held the rulers accountable for their misdeeds at all costs,” he warned.

A durable Islamic democratic society, governed by an Islamic welfare state, was the only solution of prevailing crises, he said, urging the masses to support the JI’s struggle for achieving the destination.

The participants continued waving national and JI flags during the proceedings. They chanted slogans against the rulers and in favour of JI leadership. JI Northern Punjab Emir Dr Tariq Saleem, JI Information Secretary Qaisar Sharif and JI Youth Pakistan President Zubair Gondal were also present on occasion.