Daily Times

PESHAWAR: President Mamnoon Hussain on Wednesday emphasised elimination of terrorism and corruption for sustained progress and development of the country.

Addressing the concluding ceremony of the weeklong 1st Governor FATA Youth Festival at Qayum Sports Complex as the chief guest, he called upon the youth to play their role for wiping out corruption and terrorism from the country. The president said killers of innocent people and perpetrators of brutal terrorist attacks like one on Mardan NADRA office do not deserve any mercy. The entire nation, he said, was united in the fight against terrorism and the operation against it would continue till the elimination of the last terrorist.

The president said sports can play a key role in the promotion of peace and protecting youth from falling into wrong hands, adding that the nefarious designs of the enemies of peace could be frustrated by promoting sporting events in FATA with regular intervals. “I feel immensely happy to see joy on the faces of FATA youth. It clearly indicates that terrorism and unrest has been crushed and peace restored in FATA,” he said. Mamnoon said the youth is the future of Pakistan and enemies of the country would not be allowed to exploit them for their ulterior motives.

He said the government is recompiling academic curriculum keeping in view the modern age needs and interests of FATA’s youth. Commending the sacrifices, steadfastness of tribal people in the fight against terrorism, the president said their sacrifices would be written in golden words in the history and assured their genuine problems would be addressed on priority basis. He said the dignified repatriation of temporarily displaced people to their hometowns would be ensured and all the hurdles in their resettlement would be removed with the objective to bring FATA into the mainstream.

The president said corruption during the previous regimes had adversely affected process of development in the country and no significant mega energy and power project was launched by previous governments. He said that after coming into power the present elected government paid full attention to the energy sector, revival of economy and launched scores of power projects to address the problem of energy shortfall on priority basis. “Together we ought to fight against corruption and socially boycott the corrupt elements besides exposing them,” the president said.

He said majority of the reputed monetary institutions have appreciated the economic policies and success of PML-N government, the credit for which goes to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and his team. He said the country was moving in the right direction and making progress. President Mamnoon Hussain said the multi-dimensional China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Project would benefit the people of entire country. The foundation-laying ceremony of western route of CPEC by the prime minister would accelerate the pace of development in Balochistan,” he added.

President Mamnoon also lauded the sacrifices of the security forces, police, political administration and officials for the defence of motherland in a difficult situation. He directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and FATA Secretariat authorities to establish a state-of-the-art sports complex in FATA which provides all modern sporting facilities so that more such sporting events and festivals could be organised for the tribal people. In his welcome remarks Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor thanked the president for attending the concluding session of the festival and said tribal youth from all FATA agencies and frontier regions have enthusiastically participated in different games in the weeklong festival.