HARIPUR: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has said that a powerful clique of rulers comprising landlords, tribal chieftains, military generals and bureaucrats had been exploiting the country’s 250 million people for decades.

He said that the same class continued to rule the nation with changed faces and methods, with people pinning high hopes in them.

“They [ruling elite] are not interested in people’s welfare through education and skill development,” he told a public meeting at the Teachers Training School here.

Mr Rehman said that the policies of the ruling clique had destroyed the economy.

JI chief urges youth not to lose hope about the future

He said that though the country was rich in natural and human resources, the economic condition of both the state and the people didn’t improve.

The JI leader criticised the government’s economic policies and wondered why the rulers are celebrating the two-month rollover of a $2 billion loan from the UAE.

He said that the nation was bearing the burden of costly interest-based loans taken by the ruling consortium, which had rendered every newborn baby indebted.

Referring to what he called flawed state policies, Mr Rehman said that high power rates had affected the competitiveness of Pakistani products and reduced job opportunities, forcing people to migrate to Karachi and other major urban centres.

He alleged that the rulers had paid Rs2.2trillion to independent power producers in a year for electricity that was never generated, terming such decisions anti-economy.

“They [authorities] paid a huge amount to the IPP ‘mafia’ from taxpayers’ money, as some political parties use such mafias as their ATMs,” he claimed.

The JI chief said that the rulers would hardly prefer to spend even Rs500 billion on the education and skill development of children as they did not want them to become educated for their development and prosperity.

He said that children of many rulers studied abroad, so they’re least interested in improving the fate of the people.

Mr Rehman complained that those who didn’t introduce democracy in their own parties could not run the country on democratic principles.

“Look at PPP and PML-N whose leadership has always been limited to certain families,” he said, adding that the PML-N has given key positions in Punjab and the federal government to relatives.

The JI leader said that democracy that flourished during dictatorship couldn’t truly be called democracy.

He said that his party’s Bano Qabil programme had registered 1.3 million youth, while80,000-90,000 youth had started their own businesses.

Mr Rehman urged youth not to lose hope about the future and said the JI would help them become skilled through its programmes.

He urged youth to strengthen the party with their support and said that the Jamaat-i-Islami would surprise many in the next general elections, similar to its performance in Bangladesh.

JI district emir Tahir Atiq Siddiqui and leaders Ghazan Iqbal Khan and Abdul Razaq Abbasi also addressed the gathering.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2026