Passing the buck: JI says American pressure has stalled IP project

Siraj says project must be completed to overcome gas shortage .

LAHORE:

Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) ameer Sirajul Haq said on Sunday that the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project had been left in limbo due to American pressure.

Haq was addressing a rally on public rights organised by the Awami Rickshaw Union. He said the project must be completed to overcome the gas shortage. Haq said the United States of America (USA) had sabotaged the project as it did not want the nation to prosper. He said it was necessary to eliminate poverty and revamp the exploitative socio-economic system enshrined in the country to rid Pakistan of the scourge of terrorism. Haq said citizens had been compelled to commit suicide while those responsible for their welfare had busied themselves with amassing fortunes.



He said the working class had been toiling for national development. Haq said the nation’s leaders had a penchant for squandering public funds. The JI ameer travelled and drove a rickshaw to express solidarity with rickshaw drivers. The rally commenced at Nasser Bagh and transformed into a public meeting at Chairing Cross. Hundreds of rickshaw drivers and motorcyclists came together to attend the event.

Haq said the delinquent leaders of the nation had laundered public funds abroad. He said the plight of the common man did not move the country’s elite. Haq said the elite had managed to retain control of the corridors of power by changing faces and political allegiances. He said self-styled public representatives only visited constitutes during elections and left them to their own devices after securing a mandate. Haq said no minister or adviser spoke about the challenges confronting the public in the National Assembly.

He said the JI was a party of workers and labourers. Haq said the party was committed to protecting the rights of the public. He said he had announced a peoples’ agenda at the party’s three-day convention at the city’s Minto Park in December to resolve the public’s problems. Haq urged the people to join the JI to transform Pakistan into an Islamic polity. He said the Islamic government would subsidise flour, cooking-oil, sugar, tea and rice for the benefit of the underprivileged. Haq said the government would provide people with life threatening ailments with free healthcare. He said the government would also impose a uniform education system nationwide to ensure that underprivileged children had access to quality education.

Punjab amir Syed Waseem Akhtar also addressed those present. He urged police to stop victimising rickshaw drivers and exhorted Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to look into the matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2014.