News
Saturday, February 04, 2012
No talks on elections before budget: Gilani* PM says all conspiracies against government aimed at avoiding Senate elections
Staff Report
LAHORE: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Friday said the Senate elections would be held according to schedule and the government would only talk about general elections with other political parties after the budget.
He made the comments while talking to reporters at the opening ceremony of the Pak-Business Express train at the railway station. The prime minister said that the government would present its fifth budget in the National Assembly in June, an unprecedented feat in the history of the country.
“All conspiracies against the government will end after the Senate elections as they are aimed at avoiding these elections,” he said.
The prime minister said he would be ready to discuss the next general elections with political parties after presenting the budget for the next fiscal year. He said that the regulatory authority was responsible for fixing petroleum prices, but as the chief executive of the government, he had formed a parliamentary committee to discuss the issue.
The prime minister said that the parliamentary committee would take up the issue of petroleum prices with the finance minister.
Gilani said that he had been in the office of prime minister for the longest period in the history of the country, adding that the present government would be the first to complete its tenure.
Replying to a question about a statement by the Punjab chief minister, he said that the government had no need to hatch a conspiracy against the provincial government.
Gilani said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) did not believe in confrontation and had never tried to initiate conflict among institutions. He added that the government was not trying to create rifts with the judiciary and that he would comply with the court’s decision.
When asked about proceedings at the Supreme Court, Gilani said he respected the decision of the court and would appear before it on February 13.
He also clarified that the government had facilitated foreign health experts to diagnose the causes of dengue and did not create any hurdles. He said that he also talked to World Health Organisation (WHO) about the dengue epidemic and the reaction of cardiac patients to spurious drugs, but the WHO officials were not aware about who the Punjab health minister was.
Later, speaking at the inauguration of the Kala Shah Kaku toll plaza near Shahdara, Prime Minister Gilani said that democracy and the constitution were alive in the country due to sacrifices rendered by the Bhutto family.
He said that Zulifkar Ali Bhutto gave the nation a constitution and the PPP government restored it in letter and spirit. He said the people who thought that the PPP was not popular in the country were wrong, because the PPP was an ideological party and all its workers were committed to that ideology.
The prime minister said the PPP government had a number of achievements to its credit, including restoration of the 1973 constitution, approval of the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award for the first time in the history of Pakistan, passage of 18th Amendment, passage of a women’s rights bill in the National Assembly, restoration of the judiciary, introducing reforms in FATA and materialising the dream of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.
He said that he never compromised on principles and that was why he did not attend the Bonn conference. He said the PPP government took the decisions to stop the NATO supply line and asked the United States to vacate the Shamsi airbase on merit and according to the wishes of the people of Pakistan.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk