A former National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) Chief and Jeeway Pakistan Jeeway Maqami-hakoomat (JPJM) Chairman Daniyal Aziz on Saturday announced the launching of a campaign against rising inflation and corruption saying that the people could not be detracted from real issues like inflation and price hike and rallies and public meetings would be held in the country and that the government had a duty now to announce a clear-cut policy to resolve its people’s problems.
Addressing a news conference at National Press Club (NPC), Danyal said that the inflation, un-employment and delay in local government elections were the major causes of corruption in the country. “Delay in local government elections is a violation of Article 140A of the constitution and results in the misappropriation of billions of rupees of funds,” he said, adding that the local government funds misappropriated by the provincial governments during the last two years included Rs 119.7 billion in the Punjab, Rs 83.5 billion in Sindh, Rs 23.8 billion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Rs 8.8 billion in Balochistan.
He asserted that situation in Baluchistan was the worst as the Provincial Finance Commission had been removed from the system after amending the Local Government Ordinance. On the occasion, Danyal also released a white paper as part of his campaign against the illegal utilisation of Local Government funds by the provincial governments.
“The provincial governments, through notifications, have changed the local government funds into the Members of Parliamentary Assembly (MPA)’s discretionary funds which the law does not permit,” Danyal pointed out, adding that through such practice, a handful of MPAs were receiving commissions and kickbacks through their contractors.
About the daily rising inflation, the JPJM chairman said in its Nov 28, 2008 agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government had clearly mentioned that the rate of interest would be increased to reduce inflationary pressure whereas contrary to this agreement the interest rate had been decreased 1.5 percent. He said the reason behind this is that the government loaned 94 percent of its expenses from commercial banks to run its daily expenditures.
Aziz said the government got a benefit of Rs 28 billion by reducing the interest rate by only one percent. He said, “Today the voices for new provinces are being heard in every nook and corner of the country due to its denial of financial and democratic rights to its people at a local level.”
He concluded that inflation could not be controlled through administrative measures but by increasing the interest rate.
He said the world’s top political leadership had taken billions of rupees as loans from the banks and the interest rate was being reduced to benefit them.
