Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman Announces Extension of Sit-In, Issues Government Ultimatum to End Levies
ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman announced today that the party’s continuous sit-in protest will continue and is giving the government a very tough ultimatum to remove the heavy public levies.
Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman asked the protesters to stay away from the protest and said that the protest and the sit-in have already spread across Hyderabad and other areas. He informed that on August 22, there were protest rallies in all parts of Balochistan and a formal sit-in was to begin here from August 29. He singled out the ruling leadership for its ruthless exploitation of the common folk and said Jamaat-e-Islami had managed to expose the financial mismanagement being carried out by the ruling leadership.
The Campaign for Mobilisation, IPPs and Education concerns.
The JI Emir called on the citizens to go to the local markets, take pictures and videos showing the skyrocketing inflation rate and encourage other citizens to join the movement, saying that such a campaign of digital media would make the rulers’ sleep uneasy. He announced that a detailed file of the signatures and names of millions of citizens will be prepared and submitted to the rest of the world and that levies must be immediately withdrawn or the administration will be bankrupt. He alleged that government is still levying heavy taxes and charges from the poor people and is collecting more than Rs 8,000 billion, just from levy collections.
In energy, there is a huge amount of money being spent on capacity payments for power companies, but there are also a number of sharp criticisms being made about the unfair deals and capacity manipulation that took place with Independent Power Producers (IPPs), said Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman. He said that Jamaat-e-Islami had successfully secured relief for the citizens in the past in electricity bills through its 14-day sit-in.
He cited administrative and educational grievances, and alleged that the public education system in Punjab was being undermined by the outsourcing of thousands of schools, resulting in about 11.8 million children being out of school while vast amounts of money are being pumped intoshowcase projects. Moreover, he expressed his strong backing for the distressed farmers, saying that cotton and wheat farmers are facing serious distress as crop prices remain unremunerative, utility cost is increasing and there is widespread inflation in the country.