July 20, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 16, 1429

ISLAMABAD, July 19: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Saturday that the PPP-led coalition government would fulfil all its promises, including the restoration of sacked judges, controlling price hike and loadshedding.

In his first address to the nation on radio and television after becoming the prime minister, he, however, said that like always dictatorship was causing problems for elected representatives and that the people should extend support to the government to deal with challenges and pull the country out of the problems.

He said that the new government has inherited the problem of terrorism, extremism and law and order due to which it was becoming difficult to run the affairs of the country particularly to deliver in terms of protecting the lives and the property of the people.

The premier’s first speech was mismanaged by his media team. The speech was delayed for three hours, starting at 11pm instead of the scheduled 8pm, forcing Mr Gilani to speak live. Again he was badly advised to read through teleprompter and, as was expected, he started faltering.

The speech was then disrupted for couple of minutes and then he started reading from the written copy.

The prime minister declared that his government would not allow any foreign country to operate from Pakistan against terrorists and said that Pakistani forces would do the job for which the international community has been taken into confidence.

He said Pakistan was passing through a critical phase which demanded that, “we should not waste our time in levelling allegations against each other”.

The prime minister appealed to the nation to give time to the elected government to deliver specially in improving the deteriorating economic situation. “Oil price increases and food inflation are international phenomena and we can hardly do any thing to reverse it”, he said adding that priorities were being set to improve economic conditions so as to remove food inflation, unemployment and poverty from the society.

The prime minister speech lacked any major decision to deal with price hike, load shedding, hoarding and profiteering. Most of the time, Mr Gilani repeated the decisions already announced in the new budget and such it looked a budget speech of the finance minister.

The prime minister recalled some of the achievements of his government like the release of the judges, removal of Pemra laws and assuring the freedom of press.

Like always, he said, the PPP government took over when the country was phased with serious challenges. He expressed hopes Šthat PML(N), ANP, MQM and JUF of Fazlur Rehman would continue extending their cooperation to the PPP to fully remove dictatorship and restore real democracy in the country. “ We will soon give a good news to the nation to restore the judges”, the prime minister said that enough measures were being taken to give up the path of political revenge in the country.

He said he fully realised that the issues like price and load sheeding were causing immense problems to the people. He said that price of oil in the international market has increased from $70 to $140 per barrel due to which both the developed and developing countries were suffering.

The prime minister regretted that the increase in cars and mobile phones were termed as the sign of development and progress in the country. “We have been made a consumption economy while the agriculture sector was ignored”, he said adding that various measures taken to improve agricultural production will help remove food shortage and thus price hike.

He said the financial institutions were made crippled and no attention was given on the development of agricultural and industry due to which the country was today facing numerous problems.

However, he assured that his government would eliminate hoarding and profiteering to provide certain respite to the people. The prime minister appealed to the investors not to take the capital out of the country.

He said there was unnecessary extra use of oil and edible oil due to which government’s deficit has increased manifold.

The prime minister said that the government had increased the support price of wheat from Rs475 to Rs624 per forty KG which he said would be further increased before the arrival of new crop.

He said that farmers will be given additional Rs30 billion loans to help increase agricultural production in the country.

The government, he said, had already announced 20 per cent increase in the salaries of government employees and the pensioners.

The prime minister said that the menace of load-shedding will be removed by extending new power projects to the IPPs as was done during the second government of late Ms Benazir Bhutto. From next year, the problem of load-sheeding would be restricted to some major extent”, he said adding that $14 billion new investment will be made by the IPPs to deal with the issue. Similarly, he said that Thar Coal Authority has been set up toestablish coal fired power projects. In this regard he referred to a round table conference in Washington on July 29 which will be participated by investors and energy experts.