ISLAMABAD, April 8: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has called upon the international community to ensure the return of money made by politicians of the Third World countries through illegal means.

Inaugurating a two-day 3rd ministerial meeting of the Finance and Planning Ministers of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) here on Monday, the President said while the developed countries were taking the issue of laundering of drug money seriously, they should also take notice of laundering of that money which was made through other corrupt practices.

The President said that corrupt leaders should be taken to task so that adequate funds could be spent on the welfare of the poor people.

The President also urged the governments of Saarc countries to remove political and economic hurdles in order to eradicate poverty from the region.

“South Asian region has become synonymous with political and economic conflicts which require to be addressed urgently to alleviate massive poverty in this part of the world,” he said.

The President stressed the need for forging better political understanding to make the regional forum more effective like other economic forums of the world.

Gen Musharraf said he was confident that the conference would look into all the issues seriously to address the issue of poverty. “We must evolve a sound agenda to reinforce our joint efforts to meet the challenges of poverty and illiteracy.”

“We stand for the continuity of policies and we are against any disruption with a view to achieving economic stability in our countries,” the President said. Without mentioning India, Gen Musharraf said that Saarc could not be made an effective organization if political and economic conflicts were not addressed.

He regretted that 43 per cent people in the Saarc region fell in the category of “poorest of the poor” and even lagged behind many countries of Africa.

Gen Musharraf called upon the developed world to help the developing countries in their fight against poverty in a sustained manner.

The President asked the developed world to help developing countries lower their debt and provide them increased market access. “I believe we need a debt relief and more market access to address our economic problems,” he said.

The President said that the developed world should also help eliminate corruption from the developing countries, adding that corrupt leaders should be taken to task so that adequate funds could be spent on the welfare of the poor people.

“Isn’t it an irony that 267 million people in the Saarc region have no basic facilities, and have no access to water”, he lamented. He said it was very unfortunate that social expenditure remained inadequate in Saarc.

“We should move from South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement (Sapta) to South Asian Free Trade Agreement (Safta),” he urged.

The President was of the view that there was a need to speed up human resource development efforts in the region. He regretted that while the developed world was spending 15 per cent of its GDP on human resource development, this spending was less than 5 per cent in Saarc.

Similarly, the President said trade among Saarc countries was less than 5 per cent of their total trade which needed to be increased to help each other.

Talking about Pakistan, Gen Musharraf said his government was trying to reduce poverty by improving agricultural activities in rural areas and by using information technology to overcome urban unemployment.

Likewise, he said, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) were being used to create jobs, specially in the labour sector. The economic revival, he pointed out, was also being achieved by improving the energy sector of the country.

“We are also stressing for good governance to achieve the objectives of poverty alleviation and real economic revival,” the President said. “Good governance and economic revival go hand in hand.”

Nevertheless, the President pointed out there was a need to have a real political change to ensure good governance and that political restructuring was necessary to improve socio-economic conditions.

He said the people were being empowered through local governments at the grass-root level to bring about social change. He said the system had been decentralised to extend the necessary political, administrative and financial powers to the local government representatives.

“Civil servants have been made subservient to local government representatives and today you do not find the colonial system in which commissioners and deputy commissioners were all-powerful.”