ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: Members of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Poverty Alleviation and Employment Generation will advise the government to take “comprehensive initiatives” for tackling the widespread poverty.

“The third meeting of the task force will be held on Jan 3, 2004 in which details of comprehensive initiatives, needed to reduce the poverty level, will come up for discussion and approval,” a member of the task force said here on Saturday.

He said that the worsening law and order situation “is discouraging investments, making the task of creating job opportunities impossible as a result poverty continues to rise.”

“We are proposing serious recommendations especially for improving the investment climate”, he said, adding that the draft of recommendations was expected to be presented to the prime minister in late January 2004.

“Poverty is becoming a serious issue in Pakistan and it cannot be addressed unless the government is ready to offer new incentives to the private sector to help set up new industries”, he said.

He said that the financing problems of the investors would have to be removed and genuine non-governmental organizations encouraged to meet challenges of poverty elimination.

“Poverty cannot be tackled only by making statements as has been the case till now”, he further stated.

He blamed the government for not taking adequate measures to reduce the rising poverty. Also, he said, the prime minister needed to be informed about the exact state of the poverty in Pakistan.

Prudent spending on social sectors, he said, was another important issue, which would also be brought to the notice of the prime minister.

He said that most of the task force’s participants, especially those from the private sector, believed that they should bluntly inform the prime minister about poverty- related issues so that some concrete work could be done to address what he termed “horrifying issues of poverty in Pakistan”.

The role of the international donor agencies have reportedly been criticised by the participants of the task force. The government, another member said, would be advised to frame its own policies rather than listening to the diktats of the donor agencies.