JI says PTI running country through ordinances

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has said the nation and all opposition parties have rejected the extension being given to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal.

Addressing workers in Thatta, Badin and Tharparkar districts on Thursday, Haq contended that the extension, through an ordinance, is tantamount to bulldozing the constitution and parliament.

"The country is being governed through ordinances. The nation rejects this manner of governing the country," he said. "This strange government [of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] only sanctioned 57 pieces of legislation from the parliament against 65 ordinances passed by the president."

He commented that the PTI turned the President House into a factory producing ordinances. The JI chief also rejected the cell formed by Prime Minister Imran Khan to probe people implicated in the Pandora paper leaks.

"It's very strange that at the time of the Panama leaks, Khan had demanded a judicial commission for the inquiry, but now he has formed a subordinate cell in the PM office." He alleged that the incumbent government was trying to protect the people associated with it because the so-called cell is an eyewash.

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"How can the investors investigate the investors and friends probe the friends?" he wondered while referring to the cell. Haq said JI disapproves the double standards of PM Khan and urges the supreme court's chief justice to take suo moto notice and form a commission to probe all the 700 Pakistanis named in the papers. He also requested the apex court to make the 436 Pakistanis named in the Panama leaks a part of that inquiry.

Haq pointed out that a new debate has been initiated in the country to justify that all offshore companies listed in the papers are not necessarily involved in money laundering, corruption or tax fraud. "In an attempt to distract the nation, the rulers have set in motion a debate about legal and illegal offshore companies." He believed that offshore companies, in any form, are illegal and immoral.

Addressing workers in Islamkot, Tharparkar, he alleged that the federal and provincial governments had badly let down the poverty-stricken people of the area. He said neighbouring India had turned its desert region green with plenty of opportunities for employment, trade and industry. "The Sindh desert presents a sorry tale."

The JI chief suggested that a new paramilitary force should be formed in which only the people of the desert region are recruited. He recalled that the people from the area fought bravely against India in the past wars.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2021.