Senior Correspondent
ISLAMABAD: Vowing to make Pakistan a great nation, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday stressed for adopting high moral standards and checking corruption to achieve progress and prosperity. “Nations are not destroyed due to corruption alone, but due to moral bankruptcy and when corruption is not considered a crime,” he said while addressing a ceremony here to launch four new projects for the uplift of youth. The projects include Kamyab Jawan Markaz, Kamyab Jawan Youth Movement, Kamyab Jawan Innovation League and Kamyab Jawan Talent Hunt Youth Sports League.
The Prime Minister regretted that a convict person [Nawaz Sharif] made a speech in a function at Lahore, in which Chief Justice of Pakistan and other honorable judges were invited. Quoting Maulana Rumi, he said, the nations without distinction of good and bad are destroyed. The Prime Minister said that Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) founded Riasat-e-Madina on the principles of morality. He said that Japan could not be destroyed through atom bomb and emerged again due to moral standards.
“This nation is going to become what you cannot imagine. Since the system had been made corrupt, we are taking time to fix it,” the Prime Minister told the enthusiastic gathering of youth. Referring to statements of Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Safdar, Imran Khan said that instead of giving any evidence about the sources of money used for purchasing flats in London, they were abusing the country’s judiciary and army.
Prime Minister Imran Khan referred to the surfacing of alleged tapes of some judges and said after coming into politics 25 years ago he had stated that Pakistan’s biggest problem was corruption. “In a country where prime minister and ministers indulge in corruption and take the money abroad, it is destroyed,” he said and added that nations do not get destroyed due of paucity of resources but due to corruption of leaders and the country cannot move ahead.
Recounting the events after Panama papers leaks in 2016, which showed Maryam Safdar as beneficial owner of four flats in a most pricy area of London, the Prime Minister said that the court heard the case, JIT (Joint Investigation Team) was constituted and Nawaz Sharif was convicted. But, he added, instead of telling the source of funding for the flats, first the mantra of “Mujhay Keun Nikala” started and then they started abusing the judiciary, army and him (Imran Khan).
Prime Minister Khan gave in-principal approval to the merger of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) into National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The decision was taken at the 14th meeting of the ERRA Council chaired by the prime minister and attended by Punjab Chief Minister Usman Bazdar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid, Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi, National Assembly members Saleh Muhammad, Abdullah Khan and Chairman ERRA Lt Gen Akhtar Nawaz.
The prime minister issued directives to hand over 2,200 completed projects of ERRA to the concerned provincial governments and departments, and for early completion of 230 under-progress projects by the year’s end. He stressed considering proper guidelines of construction in areas on geological fault lines to sustain earthquakes. He also urged promotion of tourism in areas particularly northern areas, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. The meeting was briefed on the progress on New Balakot City and the handing over of unfinished projects to the provincial governments under ERRA. The prime minister directed to expedite the progress on New Balakot City as well as on the semi-completed projects.