SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
The army is working within the limits set by the Constitution and reports that decisions regarding foreign policy and security issues will now be taken by the establishment rather than the government are totally baseless, Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid says.
“These are all allegations just like the ones being levelled daily by Imran Khan and others. They are entirely unfounded,” said the minister when he was approached for comments on media reports that the ongoing PTI-PAT sit-in protests have eroded the authority of the prime minister and the power to take decisions on foreign policy and security issues has been assumed by the army.
Talking to The Nation on Sunday, the minister said the government and the army were on the same page. Successes on the foreign policy front would not have been possible without the civil-military leaders being on the same page. Kabul’s complaints against Islamabad have come to an end and Islamabad’s relations with New Delhi have improved only because of the best relations between the political and military leaderships, the minister said.
According to him, some elements want to weaken the government, but their dreams will never come true.
Pervaiz claimed that Imran Khan’s civil disobedience call had been rejected even by his senior party leaders, let alone the common man. PTI Secretary General Jehangir Tareen, he said, was regularly paying all taxes and duties of his industrial units. Similarly, he said, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Shafqat Mehmood and Shireen Mazari were also paying their taxes, ignoring the call given by their party chairman.
In KP, where the PTI was in power, revenue receipts have gone up in the recent past, the minister said, arguing that nobody had given importance to the PTI chief’s call.
Pervaiz said even Imran Khan was paying the electricity bills of his Banni Gala residence and funds he was receiving from abroad were coming through normal banking channels, not hundi, as had been advised by the cricketer-turned-politician to his foreign supporters.
The minister believed that the situation in Islamabad would return to normal during the next few days. The government, he said, was soft on the protesters because they included many women and children.
In response to a question, the minister said the PTI-PAT protests had done a great disservice to the country. After the transfer of power to the PML-N government as a result of the 2013 elections, Pakistan’s image abroad had improved. Foreign countries had changed their attitude towards Pakistan and many of them also came up with investment proposals. Some world powers expressed confidence in the policies of the new government to an extent that they issued reports that Pakistan would be among the top 10 global economies by 2030.
But, he regretted, the PTI-PAT sit-ins changed the situation and people started raising doubts about the very future of democracy. China’s president postponed his Pakistan visit on account of political situation in the Islamic Republic. The Chinese leader, he said, was supposed to sign $34billion agreements for 10,400 MW new power projects, which were equal to 50 per cent of the country’s existing installed capacity.
The postponement of the visit, the information minister said, would please only such powers as were opposed to the growing Sino-Pakistan ties and wanted to keep Islamabad under their influence.
Rejecting the allegations that the energy projects involved kickbacks, Senator Pervaiz Rashid said in fact it was foreign direct investment, policy for which had been approved by the federal and provincial governments.
He said had the energy projects been signed, Pakistan would have attracted up to $70billion from other countries.
In response to a question, the information minister said the sit-ins were a total failure from day one as the organisers had failed to bring people to the federal capital. However, he said, now the PTI and PAT supporters were insisting on staying put because of their obduracy. The protests, he said, had undermined the efforts made by the government over the past 14 months to solve people’s problems and now the government would have to make fresh efforts to make up the losses.
“How will it now be possible for the government to honour its commitment to bringing $60million of Asif Zardari from the Swiss banks after his party, PPP, has played such an important role in saving the PML-N government?” the minister was asked.
He said: “It’s not fair to raise this question. The relevant law is not person-specific. It will be implemented.”
As for the PPP’s role in resolving the crisis, the minister said PPP Co-Chairperson Asif Zardari himself had made it clear to all that they fulfilled their constitutional duty, and did no favour to anyone.
pakistan.shafaqna.com
