Statement: JI condemns energy, education policies

Party leaders say suicides on the rise in the province.


Our Correspondent January 28, 2013
Poverty and suicides are increasing, but the government leaders, who are “living like kings” are not bothered about it, says JI leaders. PHOTO: FILE

BAHAWALPUR:


Due to inflation and unemployment, more than half the people of Punjab cannot afford adequate food to fill their children, Jamaat-i-Islami (Punjab) ameer Dr Syed Wasim Akhtar and General Secretary Nazeer Ahmad Janjua said on Monday.


In a joint statement, Dr Akhtar and Janjua said that hunger was the biggest reason behind an increase in the crime rate.

They said that more than 450 mills in the Punjab had closed down due to electricity and gas load shedding.

They said last year, industries in the Punjab remained closed for 272 days due to load-shedding.

Energy crisis had forced the industrialists and workers in the production units to take to streets. One-fourth of the industries, they said, were not working any longer.

They said the garments industry was being forced to use wood to meet the export orders, which reduced the productivity and increased the cost.

Poverty and suicides were also increasing, but the government leaders, who were “living like kings” were not bothered about it.

The JI leaders said that the Punjab government’s revenue was less than its spending. As a result, the province owed more than Rs400 billion in debts, they said.

They regretted that these days, the Punjab government was acting on advice from two foreigners, Sir Michael Barber, advisor to the chief minister on public education reform programme, and American educationist Harold Raymond Wayne Benjamin.

According to Section 251 of the Constitution of Pakistan, the government should make Urdu the medium of education, but the Punjab government and its advisors had instead made English compulsory from first grade, they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2013.

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