2018 elections be contested on elimination of corruption: JI

F.P. Report

LAHORE: Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Sirajul Haq said that the situation in the country warranted that all the political parties contested the 2018 elections on the one point agenda of elimination of corruption.

He was speaking at a reception hosted in his honour at the Islamic Cultural centre, Oslo, Norway.

Sirajul Haq said that the plunderers of public money should not be allowed to flee the country till they returned every penny of the looted money.

He said that at least the financial matters of the period of Musharraf, Zardari and Nawaz Sharif be audited. He said that allowing the corrupt leaders to go abroad without completing the accountability process would be a joke with the nation.

The JI chief said that a fresh NRO would not be accepted and every conspiracy against the nation would be fully resisted.

Sirajul Haq further said that the Nizame Mustafa was the solution of all the problems facing the country and the nation. He said that the MMA would contest the 2108 elections on this national agenda.

He said the ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been talking of a liberal and secular Pakistan but he ignored the fact that Pakistan had been established for Islam. He said that thousands of the people had sacrificed their lives for Islam and not for secularism.

Describing corruption as the root cause of all social, economic and political problems, Sirajul Haq said that unless and until this cancer was removed, crises would continue to crop up in the country one after the other.

He said that terrorism, lawlessness, poverty and illiteracy had been born out of corruption. He said that the people who were duty bound to safeguard public money, proved to be dishonest as they ignored the public good and pursued their personal goals all the time.

The JI chief said that Allah had blessed Pakistan with vast resources including gold, coal and oil. The oil reserves of Balochistan were more than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Iran put together but these were not been protected or exploited.

He said that the Finance Minister had admitted in the parliament that an amount of 200 billion dollars had been transferred to foreign countries. However, he said, this amount was stated to be around five billion dollars.

Similarly, he said, a former NAB Chairman had admitted that corruption to the tune of twelve billion rupees was going on in the country every day. He said that if this loot and plunder was controlled, the country could be put on the path of progress within a year.

JI deputy Secretary General, Muhammad Asghar, is accompanying the JI chief in his visit abroad.