LAHORE, March 2: The Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF) has called upon the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Awami National Party (ANP) to provide relief to the masses by checking wasteful expenditures after forming their governments.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, PWF president Chaudhry Talib Nawaz and general-secretary Khurshid Ahmed expressed concern over increase in petroleum prices and power tariff and said that the PML-Q regime had multiplied government expenditure by increasing the number of ministries and pay and allowances of the legislators and shifted the burden on the people in the form of taxes.

The PPP, PML-N and the ANP should not only reduce the number of federal and provincial ministries, they must reduce the taxes, particularly on petroleum products, and gas and electricity tariffs to provide relief to the masses.

They said that the new government should not only restore the superior court judges deposed under the Nov 3 Provisional Constitution Order and repeal undemocratic amendments to the Constitution in the wake of Nov 3 PCO, it should also repeal the Industrial Relations Ordinance and Removal of Service Ordinance promulgated by President Pervez Musharraf to impose restrictions on workers’ trade union activities allowing summary procedure of dismissing government employees without giving them a chance to defend themselves against certain allegations.