- Premier stresses need for having powerful economy and ridding country of power outages
- Sharif tells PTI to stop protests and wait four years for their turn
Acknowledging Pakistan’s preparedness to defend itself militarily, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that the country should concentrate on economic progress and not defence.
The premier was addressing a gathering Wednesday organised to mark Youm-e-Takbeer, commemorating the day in 1998 when Pakistan became the world’s seventh nuclear power.
Speaking on the peaceful use of Pakistan’s nuclear resources, the premier termed his recent visit to India “a success”, adding that Pakistan wanted cordial relations with its neighbours.
“What kind of nuclear power are we if we are still engulfed in darkness instead of light. We have illiteracy instead of education, we have more unemployed people than those with jobs and more terrorism and less peace,” the prime minister remarked, stressing the need to pull the country out of multi-faceted crisis.
POWER WOES:
The premier said that his government has been working hard to ensure that people eventually have access to uninterrupted power supply. “We will not stop until we get rid of the curse of load shedding from this country,” he said.
Hopeful about ending the power crisis soon, the premier said that his government was engaged in talks with the Chinese leadership to set up more power plants to meet the country’s energy demands. “It is a big achievement that we have laid foundation of various power plants in less than a year since we came to power,” Sharif pointed out.
The premier remarked that he was not just responsible to bridge the current demand and supply gap but also responsible for ensuring that electricity requirements for the next 20 years were met as well.
PML-N’S ACHIEVEMENTS:
Referring to the hardships that the PML-N government had to face since it won the May 11 general elections last year, the prime minister remarked that the treasury of the government was empty when it came into power and the banks did not have enough capital. They had to take China’s help for the progress of the country, he added.
The premier also said that the coal reserves in Tharparkar had the capacity to generate thousands of megawatts (MW) of electricity – even more than 0.1 million MW – and therefore, the federal government was making use of it.
Proud of his government, Nawaz stated that a dam larger than Tarbela and Mangla was being constructed in the country as well.
Speaking of the development projects, the premier said that the Lahore-Karachi Motorway project will also be launched soon. He also said that Metro Bus Project, after its success in Lahore, was being completed in Rawalpindi-Islamabad to provide international level transport facilities to people.
According to Sharif, some of the major achievements of the PML-N government include the appreciation of rupee against the US dollar, the 3G-4G spectrum auction which will “generate 0.9 million jobs” and GSP Plus status approved by the European Union which will “hopefully increase our textile exports to around $1 billion”.
The prime minister also said that revenue collected in taxes was expected to increase by 16 per cent this year. Ensuring the public that his government will utlitise taxpayer money efficiently, the prime minister said that he will not let a single penny be wasted.
POLITICS OF AGITATION WON’T WORK:
Talking about the rallies being staged by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the prime minister said the politics of the 1980s and 90s would no longer work.
The premier said those holding protests and rallies should step out of the politics of the 80s and 90s and wait for four years and let the people decide who they want to elect.
“The politics of delivering and fulfilling people’s promises will now work, and not that of the 80’s and 90’s,” the prime minister said, adding that the government’s agenda was the development of Pakistan.