ISLAMABAD, Jun 11 (APP): Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Friday said the opposition parties should better shun the ‘culture of protest’ and instead come up with positive suggestions for incorporation in the budget.
He noted that the opposition parties, however, were on a mission to defame the politicians as evident from their clamoring during the budget speech of the finance minister.
Fawad, in a statement, said the opposition members resorted to protest instead of listening to the speech. Had they heard the finance minister they would have been in a better position to give their positive input.
He said they had come to the National Assembly with the intention to make a hue and cry. Both the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz would continue such protests in future too but they would get nothing in return.
All their hullabaloo, he added, was aimed at getting rid of the corruption cases against their leadership. The government could not do anything in that regard as they had plundered the national wealth and the only way out for them was to return the same to the nation.
The minister said there was 49 amendments in the electoral laws and invited the opposition leadership to discuss their reservations, if any, with the government.
He said the government had allocated a sum of Rs 900 billion under the federal Public Sector Development Programme for the next fiscal year, with 27 per cent more share for the provinces.
It was now for the provinces to prepare development budgets and spend the funds on public welfare, he added.
Fawad said the incumbent government in 2018 had inherited all state institutions, including Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Railways and others in a shambles, but it made them functional and financially viable.
The PIA and Utility Store Corporation were in loss but today they were earning operating profit, he added.
He said the government had raised the salary of employees with no new tax levied on them.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said, had steered the county out of the economic crisis with initiating financial and administrative reforms, and gave the debt-burdened nation a hope for a better future.
Contrary to the perception that pandemic would affect the foreign remittances, their volume increased owing to the visionary policies of the prime minister, he added.
