Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Wednesday said the deal between the current government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) doesn’t have any legal standing because it wasn’t endorsed by the parliament.
“The deal was signed by a selected government and it didn’t get approval from the parliament,” the PPP chairman said while addressing a seminar on labour rights. He said the PPP will not let the government sell national institutions which have blood and sweat of the labourers. “We will not let them privatise these institutions,” he maintained.
The PPP chairman said every citizen of country is bearing the brunt of economic mismanagement of this ‘PTIMF government’. “Price hike in the last 15 months has been unprecedented. This government has sacrificed the rights of labourers at the altar of IMF. Moody, Bloomberg or any other financial institution cannot tell whether the economy is going in the right direction. If one wants to know about economy, then he will have to ask the labourers,” he said.
Bilawal said there is a basic difference between the philosophy of PPP and other political parties. “PTI or PML-N think that if industrialists are given facilities and benefits, they will spend on labourers. But PPP knows that the policy should be to give labourers the facilities and benefits and this way Pakistan can prosper. If we give money to labourers instead of big businesses and landlords, the money will come back to our economy, whereas the money to industrialists and landlords only works to increase their bank balance,” he said.
“There is a basic difference between us and others. We introduced programmes like BISP so the money goes to the poorest of the poor. This is the reason that whenever PPP comes to power, it increases wages and pensions. When we provide money to the lower segments of society, that money invigorates our economy,” he said. “During our government between 2008-13, the world economy was in recession. PPP had to deal with two floods and the menace of terrorism. Despite that, employment opportunities were created until 2013 but after that nothing was done. Unfortunately, in the last 15 months, unemployment has increased,” he said. “The PPP is starting its struggle against economic murder of people. We do not accept this PTIMF deal and want that the deal by re-negotiated in best interest of the people of Pakistan,” he said. “The PPP and the labour force will have to struggle together and we will together make a policy in favour of labourers,” he went on to say. “The labour policy of Sindh government is pro-labour. Agriculture woman workers work harder than anyone and we have passed a law for them. The PPP takes pride in working for every labourer,” he said. “As grandson of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and son of Benazir Bhutto, it is my responsibility to struggle for the labour rights. I will not leave labour force for a single day like you have not left Bhuttos for a day,” he pledged.
Sindh labour minister Saeed Ghani, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Qamar Zaman Kaira and a large number of workers and labourers were also present on the occasion.