Country facing economic crisis due to corrupt ruling elite : Siraj ul Haq

Lahore : Ameer, Jamaat e Islami, Pakistan, Senator Siraj ul Haq, has said that the politicians from South Punjab who had held high public offices in the past had not done anything for the development of the area.

He was talking to the media at Bahawalpur after enquiring about the health of the chief of the JI South Punjab Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar, on Wednesday.

Sirajul Haq said that even in the present government, political leaders from South Punjab were occupying some highest public offices yet the region was badly lacking basic facilities in the fields of education, health and employment. Even clean drinking water was not available to most people in the area.

He said the PTI government had not done anything for the people and was simply whiling away time by making promises.  He said nothing practical had been done for making the Southern Punjab or Bahawalpur province.

He said that due to the present exploitative system, the majority of the people in South Punjab were living below poverty line and were disappointed.

The JIP chief said that the present government had raised the taxes and prices of different items even before securing IMF loans and the economic experts were predicting that the dollar would rise to Rs. 150 by June next, the per capita income would fall by 7.5 per cent and another nine lakh youth would lose their jobs by that time.  He said that under these conditions, the idea of creating ten million new jobs seemed to be ridiculous.

Sirajul Haq said this was the first government in the country’s history that had presented three budgets within its first eight months in power through which the prices of different essential items had been raised. He said the responsibility of the economic crisis lay with the people who had come to power with tall claims but it had been proved that they did not know the basics of economics.

He said the PTI government was also securing maximum loans like the previous governments but the nation was not being informed where these amounts were being spent.

Siraj ul Haq said that nature had blessed Pakistan with abundant resources of man and material. The country came into being on the basis of an everlasting ideology and it had the best strategic location. Above all, it had a youth population of around 64 per cent. However, he said, in spite of these resources, the country was facing  economic crisis only because of the corrupt ruling elite.