ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Friday that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government will stand by the weaker sections of the society against the powerful people.
“If our Prime Minister cannot stand by weaker Pakistanis then we have no right to remain in power,” he said at a joint press conference along with Razak Dawood, the Minister for Commerce.
The Minister said the powerful section of the society had to realize that the weaker section was their responsibility. He added that he was surprised on the reaction of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership over prime minister’s remarks.
Chaudhry also said that the prime minister spoke on the rights of Pakistanis living abroad, especially the labour class. He also stated that the overseas Pakistanis had shown great trust in the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan as remittances from Pakistanis abroad had touched record high and they were playing an important role in building the national economy.
He said that the government was ready to talk to the opposition thus the latter should adopt a serious approach for electoral reforms. The Minister of Information stated that he already had said that the re-election should be done in NA-249 as the other day’s events proved that it was a case of re-polling not recounting as seals of the ballot bags were broken and form 46 were missing.
He said that all this controversy was due to opposition parties’ refusal to adopt a serious approach for reformation of the electoral process and claimed that opposition leaders should realize the court cases against them were a separate issue.
Chaudhry gave the good news to the media that the cabinet had given approval to the Journalist Protection Act which would prove a landmark legislation for the welfare and better working environment for working journalists.
He stated that, “A new institution would be set up for redressal of journalists complaints”.
He added that the government had released Rs400 million to media houses for the purpose of providing funds to media houses that were to pay salaries to media workers on Eid. Chaudhry talked about a program for the support of media houses that was being launched and a Media Development Authority would be constituted.
Replying to questions from journalists, Fawad said the prime minister’s inspection was tasked to investigate the Saudi Arabia-based Pakistani embassy, moreover, the embassy’s Chairman Ahmad Yar Hiraj would submit the initial report within 15 days to the prime minister which would lead to the next phase being initiated on that matter.
Regarding Prime Minister Imran Khan’s promise of provision of 10 million jobs and five million houses, Fawad made it clear that these two major promises were not election promises but the PTI and its government meant it.
He said that he was compiling the data on job provision, but over one million Pakistanis had gotten employment abroad during the last two and a half years, whereas, thousands were employed in the government or the private departments.
The minister claimed that the Prime Minister Housing Scheme initiative had received applications for the provision of Rs52 billion loans and so far, Rs12 billion had already been released under this program.
Fawad said this year, a large number of houses would be constructed while the construction sector had already been showing promising turnaround and rising continuously. He added that the production of cement had been doubled and the related sectors had also shown promising growth.