The Central Shoora of the Jamat-e-Islami, Pakistan, has demanded slashing the federal cabinet by half and substantial reduction in the expenditure of the Presidency and the Prime Minister House to cut down the burden on the public exchequer.
Expressing deep concern over the worsening economic conditions of the country, the Shoora meeting with JI chief, Syed Munawar Hasan, in the chair, also called for taxing all incomes, effective check on tax evasion and corruption, recovery of all written off loans and bringing back the ill-gotten wealth of the rulers in foreign banks in order to put the country’s economy on sound footing.
The JI central advisory body through a resolution noted that Pakistan had suffered financial losses of more than 68 billion dollars in the US war on terror while the annual corruption in the country was more than 6000 billions rupees as scandals of ruler’s corruption were the talk of the town all over the country.
The Shoora demanded saying farewell to the IMF and the World Bank and adopting the path of self reliance.
In order to generate cheap electricity, the JI Shoora called for building at least four major dams at the earliest besides power generation through Thar coal.
It proposed placing the NAB under the Supreme Court to ensure impartial accountability.
Through another resolution, the Shoora noted that education had been badly neglected by the rulers and primary education had suffered the most due to wrong decision of the governments. It especially referred to the introduction of compulsory English medium in the Punjab and Chinese language in Sindh.
The JI Shoora disapproved different education system running parallel in the country which had divided the society in classes. The quality of education in government schools was poor whereas education in the private sector had become a business. Off late, the charges in government institutions had been raised tremendously closing the door of these institutions to the poor students.
The Shoora congratulated the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba on its grand convention in the city and said that the students were the future of the country. In a situation, when the country was under the US attack and there were persistent efforts to turn the country a secular state, the IJT was a ray of hope for the nation.
The Shoora noted that thousands of schools had been washed away by rains in Sindh and terrorists attacks in the tribal areas. It therefore demanded construction of schools, on war footing.
The JI Shoora disapproved the handing over of education to the provinces under the devolution plan and said this would undermine national harmony. It demanded that the responsibility of preparing the educational syllabus must be with the federal government.