LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif says it’s time to say goodbye to the US aid and rely on own resources to curb terrorism and to face future challenges.

Suggesting that we should give a message to the US to audit the aid money, he says we should refrain from taking such aid in the future.

He was speaking on inauguration of the Safe City Project (Punjab Police Integrated Command, Control and Communication Centre) at Qurban Lines on Thursday.

Shahbaz termed the tweet of US President Donald Trump about $33 billion aid to Pakistan tragic and detrimental to Pakistan’s national honour and respect.

Says America can audit aid money

“This statement of the US president is a slap on our identity. We will have to give a sane reply to this tweet,” he said.

The CM added the nation could not live with honour through beggary and no nation in the world progressed through loans.

“It should be a matter of concern for all of us that we have been held accused and defamed for the last 70 years.”

He stressed that it’s time for us to adopt a sane approach and decide to achieve the goal of self-reliance.

“We need not engage in any confrontation but the whole nation should collectively decide and give a reply to the US that we do not need your money, loan or grant. We will eat simple food but will not let our nation be insulted. Had we not made mistakes in the past, we would not have been taunted for $33bn aid,” Shahbaz suggested.

He said the PML-N government had set up electricity generation projects with indigenous resources and China had also made mega investments in energy projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

“As soon as the American president accused Pakistan, China sided with us prior to others,” he said.

Talking about the Safe City Project, the CM said it had been completed with Rs12bn in record time and the funds had been provided by the Punjab government from its own kitty.

“As many as 8,000 CCTV cameras have been installed under the project to make Lahore one of the safest cities in the world. Automatic system of identification of vehicles registration number plates, e-challan, red light monitoring as well as the latest communication system have been put in place under this composite system,” he informed about the project.

The project had been fully operational in five of the six divisions in Lahore while the work was going on in full swing in the sixth division by the end of the current month, he added.

The work had been started to launch the project in Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Sargodha and Bahawalpur.

The IG police and Huawei chief executive officer also spoke.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2018