KARACHI, June 5: MMA chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Sunday has said that the alliance supports the ongoing peace process between Pakistan and India, adding that it opposes India’s attitude of ignoring the Kashmir issue and violating its commitment with the UN to hold a plebiscite in the Valley.

He was responding to a question, during a press conference at the Idara Noor-i-Haq, regarding the state reception given to the Indian opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, Mr L. K. Advani.

He said that India was still not ready to implement the UN Security Council resolutions about the plebiscite in Kashmir. In the ongoing dialogue also, it was giving preference to other issues while ignoring the core issue of the Valley. Yet, MMA stood for good neighbourly relations with India and other countries of the region and would not oppose the peace process, he added.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed claimed that wealthy Pakistanis, including Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, had been maintaining accounts totalling $30 billion in foreign countries and if, through some legislation, they were made to invest the money in the country, this could get Pakistan rid of the IMF and World Bank loans.

“The government should make it obligatory for all living in Pakistan not to maintain their accounts abroad,” he suggested, and urged Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to demonstrate his patriotism by taking lead in this regard. He should be the first man to bring back all his wealth from abroad and investment the same in Pakistan,” he said.

Calling upon the government to bring down power and gas tariffs and petroleum prices, he demanded an increase in wages. He also called for an immediate halt to the privatization of PTCL and other profit-making organizations. The GST rate be reduced to five per cent to provide relief to common man, he added.

Referring to the figures quoted in the economic survey issued by the government, Mr Qazi pointed out that there were contradictions in the figures and the claims by international agencies and the State Bank with regard to the inflation, GDP and investment.

He said that the survey put the inflation at 9.9 per cent while the State Bank a few days back had conceded the rate being over 11 per cent. He expressed concern over the government officials’ act of misleading the nation by quoting wrong figures.

About the government’s claim of an increase in the GDP rate and investment in the country during the financial year, the MMA chief said that if the claim was true, the benefits of such an increase should have trickled down to the common man. On the contrary, he contested, poverty was on the rise, unemployment had increased and industrial units were closing down.

He recalled that the government, instead of providing protection to industry and consumers, had left them at the mercy of WTO to compete with the developed and industrialized states which would soon be dumping their consumer goods in the third world countries, only to destroy the local industries.

In this context, he also referred to the recent crash of the Karachi Stock Exchange, and said that the unfair distribution of wealth in the country was resulting in the widening gulf between the rich and the poor. “The poor are still getting poorer, and the rich richer,” he observed.

The number of people living below the poverty-line is rising sharply while the rich were sending their wealth abroad. The survey report indicates an unparallel trade deficit in the history of the country.

The government should ask all the countries showing willingness to help Pakistan to allow imports from Pakistan without any restriction. This will not only help Islamabad cope with the trade deficit, but would also benefit industrial development, besides checking unemployment. If the government succeeded in doing so, this would bring a revolutionary change.

Mr Qazi criticized the government for wasting billions of rupees in importing luxury cars. Terming the policy ‘unjustifiable’, he said that the rulers who had failed to provide security to the life and property of citizens, had no right to spend a huge amount of the public money on the import of bullet-proof cars for their own security and expensive cars for a small number of other VIPs and wealthy people.

In reply to a question, the MMA chief said: “Had the land reforms introduced in the past been implemented in letter and spirit, a revolution in the agriculture sector would have been there much earlier.” However, he lamented, feudal lords and big landowners resisted the reforms and continued to violate the limit of owning lands.

Responding to another question about his letter regarding MMA’s participation in the National Security Council meeting, Mr Qazi said that he had just exercised his right to express his point of view.

However, he added, he would accept any decision taken by the alliance’s supreme council in this regard.

About NFC Award, he said that in the National assembly session, the MMA would certainly demand a consensus of all provinces on the issue.