LAHORE: The country is facing an acute governance crisis, with the economy and agriculture in decline, rising unemployment, and capital flight worsening the situation, said Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, he announced that Jamaat would hold nationwide sit-ins on Sunday in support of an empowered local government system. The newly-introduced local government law in Punjab had rendered the public powerless through non-party-based elections, extending the culture of horse-trading down to the grassroots level, he added.

He said the future course of action would be announced after the sit-ins and he vowed to further intensify the movement against the obsolete system and the ruling elite.

The JI chief strongly condemned the ban on advertisements of a major English-language media house (the Dawn Media Group), and said that the government was attempting to control media freedom through financial pressure. He reaffirmed JI’s commitment to protecting independent media and journalists’ rights. He also condemned state violence against the sisters of the PTI founder and the termination of jobs of Passco employees.

Terming the incident of an Indian minister forcibly unveiling a Muslim woman as heinous, Mr Rehman urged the government and leaders of the Muslim world to raise a strong voice against the act.

He said that after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, powers were devolved to the provinces, and the next logical step was their transfer to the local level. However, he noted that no local government elections were held in Punjab for nearly a decade, calling the current Punjab Local Government Act a black stain on the system. He questioned the silence of other political parties on the issue.

Criticising major political parties, he said the PPP had ruled Sindh for 17 years but failed to spend Rs3,360 billion allocated for Karachi’s development over the past 15 years. He added that despite PTI’s 12-year rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, real authority remained with the bureaucracy rather than the people. He also criticised the federal government for attempting to amend local government laws in Islamabad even after announcing the election schedule.

The JI emir said that national resources were controlled by a small elite comprising civil and military bureaucracy, a handful of politicians, capitalists, and feudal lords. He said the JI had decided to join hands with the public to free the country from the grip of this elite and the outdated system.

Highlighting economic concerns, he said the trade deficit had been widening, unemployment was increasing, and capital was leaving the country, a situation also reflected in the recent IMF reports. He said RLNG agreements caused losses of trillions of rupees to the national economy, while the government had put a ban on local gas production. He highlighted the lack of interest from major international companies in the recent gas block auctions.

He said the current “PDM government“ destroyed agriculture, adding the sector had suffered a 600 per cent decline over the past two to three years. He said that the prices of agricultural inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides were several times higher than in India, while farmers were not receiving fair prices for wheat and sugarcane, and the cotton crop also remains in continuous crisis.

Referring to the World Farmers’ Day, Mr Rehman said the government advertisements and claims did not match the ground realities, as both farmers and agriculture continued to suffer. He recalled that the JI had announced the reorganisation of its “Change the System” movement at a recent public gathering and said that the public awareness campaign would continue with full force.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025