• Describes federal coalition as ‘broad-based national government’
• Says economy has totally shattered and its revival requires complete political stability

HYDERABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said general elections in the country would be held in October this year in line with the resolution of the Council of Common Interests (CCI). He recalled that the CCI had, during [former PM] Imran Khan’s government, had resolved that general elections would be held after new census.

The minister was speaking to journalists after inaugurating ‘Science and Technology Park’ at the Mehran University of Science and Technology (MUET) in Jamshoro on Friday. The project was launched during the previous PML-N government.

Ahsan Iqbal also addressed students of the university. He announced establishment of a girls’ hostel for MUET students.

MUET vice chancellor Prof Dr Tauha Hussain Ali, deans, former VC Aslam Uqaili, PML-N representative Khalid Arain and others were also present.

The minister said that the previous PML-N government had launched Rs1bn projects for the uplift of this university and he was glad to see that these projects were bearing fruits now. He claimed that under a conspiracy Nawaz Sharif’s government was removed, a crisis was created and Imran Khan was thrust upon Pakistan through rigged elections.

He described the incumbent federal coalition as a ‘broad-based national government’, and said it was trying to put together the pieces of a completely shattered economy, whose revival required complete political stability.

Mr Iqbal alleged that Imran Khan tried to sabotage th4e efforts, made during PML-N’s government, by launching long marches and protests and spending donations amounting to billions of rupees he had collected for flood victims.

He said the entire world sympathised with Pakistan over last year’s natural calamity and had now donated $10.9bn at Geneva moot.

The senior PML-N leader deplored that Imran Khan recently “fired another missile” by dissolving Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies. He wondered whether Khan’s ego was bigger than this country as he was trying to avenge his failures by playing with Pakistan’s future.

He said the results of proposed census would be published by April and the ECP would be requiring four months to complete new delimitations that would be ready by August this year to coincide with completion of the parliament’s term.

He expressed his confidence that the federal coalition would succeed in restoring political stability in the country and revive economy. He alleged that Imran Khan had already made the country bankrupt internally and this was admitted by his own handpicked expert, Shabbar Zaidi.

He predicted that PTI would meet the same fate in the general elections that was seen in Karachi’s LG elections because “he could not deceive people any longer”.

Even otherwise, he continued, ECP would have to see whether CCI, being a constitutional forum, had already decided a date for the elections and whether two elections would be economically possible as the exercise involved billions of rupees.

He said if provincial assemblies’ elections were announced by ECP, his party would participate in it. He asked whether we had economic space to leave country to another uncertainty because there would be a caretaker government in place for the next three-four months which won’t be able to take policy decisions and no one would be coming to make investments in Pakistan.

Economic reforms

He said that Pakistan needed economic reforms, added: “We need to address those structural issues that had turned into K2 after 75 years through system’s weaknesses”.

He said that Pakistan could not become an export-oriented country in the last 75 years and also could not develop capacity to earn dollars. “Whenever it attains growth, it consumes dollars in imports, yet we remained unable to earn dollars. We need a 10-year planning to increase our exports. We have to increase our economic and agricultural production for which we need consistency in policies,” he stressed.

Nawaz to lead poll campaign

Ahsan Iqbal endorsed some of his party colleagues’ claim that Nawaz Sharif would soon return home to lead PML-N’s election campaign. “[Former chief justice of Pakistan] Saqib Nisar-led judiciary had produced decisions that people abhor today. Nawaz Sharif was removed through ‘judicial engineering’ and this conspiracy for his ouster was in fact a conspiracy against CPEC,” he remarked, and noted that [former Supreme Court judge] Shaukat Siddiqui had spoken at length on this conspiracy. Ahsan Iqbal hoped that now present independent judiciary would ensure justice to Nawaz Sharif by undoing the injustice.

Rs6.5bn for varsities, Rs10bn for laptop scheme

Earlier, addressing students he said Pakistan needed competent engineers and collaborative and collective brilliance instead of polarisation. He announced that the federal government would be releasing Rs6.5bn for engineering universities’ laboratory in first phase. He wondered that when a neighbouring country had become a brand name, then why Pakistan could not do this to become a name right from Silicon valley to China. He said youth have been to digitally empowered for this purpose and that’s why engineering varsities were being strengthened.

He announced that Rs10bn would be spent for distribution of 100,000 laptops among students in public sector universities to make youths digital economy’s warriors who would earn for themselves and for country. He said Pakistan would be awarding 75 scholarships for PhD and masters students who would be obtaining admissions in subjects defined by the government in world’s top-ranking universities to bring home cutting edge knowledge from those universities. Likewise, he said, 1,000 PhD scholarships would be offered to students by HEC to produce quality human resource. He added that 10,000 PhD scholarship would be given in the next 10 years.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2023