Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Tuesday stated that an alliance with an extremist group would mean ‘international isolation’.
While rubbishing rumors in media regarding the party’s seat adjustment with a religious party, Fawad said, “There is no discussion in PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf).”
The minister stated that the religious groups have the capacity to use mobs for violence but their capacity to create any change in politics “has always been limited”. “At one point Sunni Tehreek was more violent than TLP, but done and dusted. This party will be over sooner,” he stated. “[An] alliance with such a party means international isolation,” he added.
Speaking about coverage of amendment in the NAB ordinance, he urged the media to consult their legal advisors when they were reporting on a legal matter. He said the power given to president of Pakistan for removal of the National Accountability Chairman was not subservient to the prime minister’s advice. He said when the government filed a case to Supreme Judicial Council against the former NAB chairman in the past, the Supreme Court had declared that since it was not a constitutional nomination so the SJC could not take notice. Therefore, in the wake of those remarks, the government had to give the power for removal of the chairman to someone, so it was delegated to the president of Pakistan. He said this was a ‘judicial authority’ of the president, so he could exercise it on his own discretion.
Fawad said it was the demand of media as well as the entire Parliament to bring powers of the NAB under a specific framework. He urged the opposition to put forward their amendments regarding NAB and electoral reforms and collaborate with the government to ameliorate and streamline the system.
Briefing the media about the decisions of the federal cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said, a detailed briefing on comparison of the commodities’ prices with other regional countries was given to the forum and assured that the prices in Pakistan were lowest in the region.
He said the fuel prices in Pakistan are still lowest as compare to the non-oil producing countries.
The minister said wheat flour price in Pakistan was Rs 60.9 per kilogram, while in India and Bangladesh, it stood at Rs 83 and in Afghanistan that was around Rs 73. Likewise, price of gram pulse per kg in Pakistan was Rs 146.77, while in India, it was being sold at Rs 166, and in Bangladesh at Rs 224, he said, adding price of Mash in Pakistan was Rs 245.84, while, in India, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, it stood at Rs 244, Rs 334 and Rs 214, respectively. He said the price of onion in Pakistan was Rs 47.14 per kg, while in India and Bangladesh, it was Rs 95 and Rs 121, respectively. The price of chicken in Pakistan was 254.92, and in India and Bangladesh, it was being sold at Rs 438 and Rs 324, respectively. He said in Pakistan, petrol price was Rs 138.73 per litter, while in India, it was Rs 258 and Rs 180 per litter rate was in Bangladesh.
He lashed out at the Sindh government for failing to control prices of commodities and asked Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to rather hold a protest against inflation next time before the Sindh’s Chief Minister House.
The minister said the Sindh government needed to improve its governance so that people of the province could get some relief in the wake of high inflation in the province. He said the Ministries of Commerce and Information and Broadcasting gave the presentation to the Cabinet on the vacant posts available in their attached departments.
Fawad said the Federal Cabinet had decided that the government would not acquire the land of the local people for construction of housing societies which used to be the policy in the past. He said that it had been decided that the prime minister’s discretionary powers to allot plots would be abolished. The prime minister had not used that discretionary power so far. agencies
