ISLAMABAD, Aug 20: President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday called for solving political issues by utilizing democratic and constitutional means.

He was speaking during the question-answer session at the conference organized here by the Berlin-based anti-corruption organisation Transparency International (TI).

The president said that political instability and sectarian and militant extremism were hindering Pakistan from realizing its full potential.

Dismissing the notion that the country needed any aid to move ahead, Gen Musharraf said that the nation needed to “put the house in order,” adding that Pakistan possessed necessary resources and was capable of making progress.

Referring to the present political and governance scenario, the president eliminated the possibility of any political interference and called for generating momentum to achieve national objectives, saying that the government possessed a majority in the assemblies necessary to pass any legislative measure any time.

He cautioned about assigning extra importance to what was happening in the assemblies, saying it would not stop the government from performing its role.

“We want democracy to mature in Pakistan,” President Musharraf said.

Technocrats, businessmen and representatives of the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are attending the conference to discuss public and private sector corruption with government representatives.

Later, addressing the participants of the conference’s concluding session Gen Pervez Musharraf said: “Strong and autonomous state institutions, merit-based selections, and removal of discretionary powers are the basic ingredients to check corruption.”

Other measures, he said, needed in this regard were reducing human contact through e-governance, improving the quality of law enforcement agencies and “an honest, dedicated and correct leadership.”

Enumerating governmental measures taken in the past three years, the president said that the creation of an anti-graft watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) plus complete autonomy of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) were just some measures aimed at wiping out corruption.

Referring to the local government system, he said that it was now in place where the people could keep a watch against misuse of public sector funds.—PPI/dpa