PM Speech in National Assembly
Few days ago in this honorable house we unanimously passed a resolution which says that this house represents the 200 million people in this country. I believe that this spectacle would ever be remembered and I am glad that it is the voice of 200 million Pakistanis. I feel excited when the members of this house express this that they are only working for the supremacy of democracy not for any government or Prime Minister. To me this is supremacy/victory of our ideology, of the very ideology which we believe in and trust upon. This is not about individuals and governments because governments come and leave, Prime Ministers come and go but trusting the system, democracy, supremacy of the constitution is the supreme victory for the democracy. And I believe that irrespective of hailing from left or right wing everybody in this house voted for the resolution. Nine out of 10 parties are present here and raised their hands in support for the resolution, I think never ever before in the history of Pakistan such an example can be found.
Hence from the core of my heart I want to thank the honorable house and all of you that you all chose me and I assure you that I took an oath that I will abide by the constitution and I will not disappoint you. And I will not flinch from my oath (Insha’Allah). I promise you and all the political parties which are even not present in the house but who supported the resolution and all journalists who supported it and business community who supported it and I believe that minorities also supported this (resolution) and People from all walks of live supported it and I want to thank them all. This journey of the supremacy of the constitution and law will be continuous and by the grace of God it will never be interrupted. I believe that we are part of this journey and moving ahead in the direction which will endow Pakistan a bright future. Democracy will prevail in Pakistan. By the grace of God a day will come there will be no hindrance in its path and anyone who tries to derail it would face accountability/impeachment. Whatever development projects we started we would pursue them vigorously and we aren’t scared of these odds.
Mr. Speaker, with the grace of Almighty whatever little we are doing for our country, we faced ups and downs and I don’t call it either good or a bad time, we saw a time when we went through hardships, and faced them with steadfastness of character and never whined about them. I want to give an example of 2008 elections in this regard, Mr. Speaker I wasn’t allowed to contest election at that time and my nomination papers were rejected; even if we had won those elections nobody would have been aware of the fact that who would be the Prime Minister. Although we went through the whole election process and ran our campaigns and ultimately whatever result appeared we accepted it open heartedly. We never protested, although we could have protested; and it would not have been unjust on our part to protest about the rejection of the nomination papers of the party leader. At that time a dictator was in power who had his hold on district governments, all governors were under his command, care taker government was subservient to him and hence all set-up and system belonged to him. In such a scenario elections were held and I have already mentioned what kind of elections those were. We endorsed that People’s Party had the right to form a government and we would support that decision. And we announced this in presence of all the leaders including Asif Ali Zardari. And in subsequent five years we made every possible effort to strengthen and prolong the (democratic) system, nothing should derail the system and government complete its full five years term. And with the grace of Almighty we succeeded in that mission as well, the government completed its term. And after that another election was held and the result in front of you. I personally went to see Imran Khan when he was in hospital after getting injured. And after the elections, Imran Khan congratulated me for winning these elections and assured me that he would co-operate in each positive step we take. He assured about the presence of constructive opposition. And he invited me to his residence in Bani Gala and I personally went to him and talked to him in most amicable manner. Even when I left him he talked very positively about our meeting to press. At his residence he assured me about is cooperation.
I personally believe that if a government commits some mistake and can’t positively decide an issue then the honorable house has the right to hold it accountable. We would be glad in such a scenario, why we always remain among psychopaths, I personally believe that system of check and balance should be there for government; even then the driving force behind such checks and balance should be that if a government works positively it should be encouraged. Today morning I have met with the MQM delegation and I really appreciated what they said and they also expressed the same about us. We want reforms in our country; actually government comes and goes so does the PM. We have to ponder about the better future of our future generations and about the betterment of Pakistan. For all this we have to plan today, all the house and the whole nation agree about such reforms. We have formed 33 members committee to discuss reforms and all the members should contribute through their input. Mr. Speaker Pakistan is progressing and I am not saying that we have touched milestone, rather we just started to move towards that. But due to current commotion in the country, stock exchange suffered considerably, people suffered heavy loss of millions of rupees. Pak rupee considerably suffered. Who will be happy in such circumstances? In recent past Pakistan’s rating moved to stable from negative rating; nobody wants it to be demoted to the negative rating again. But in recent past our confidence is considerable shaken.
Our investment partners are apprehensive about investing in such an uncertain atmosphere. Khawaja Saad rafique will enlighten you all about our recent dialogues with both the parties. About their demands and what we can do and what we can’t. I have been thoroughly following these recent incidents and I will talk about it at opportune time. And certainly we will discuss why this all started. But with the grace of Almighty our journey toward betterment would continue, poverty is rampant in Pakistan we shall eliminate it. And this we desire all, not just our party but all the parties together. There is unemployment in Pakistan and we all desire to eradicate this. Pakistan is facing the problem of load shedding and we all want to end this, we all desire that all find feasible transport system, to spread roads. We are moving towards achieving these goals and now you tell me how can one achieve all this in one single day? We have only one old power house currently working and our banks do not have enough money to lend us loan to build a new one. We arranged loan and started a project with the capacity of 10,000 MW electricity, this project was approved in May and this has to be completed on priority basis.
I want to share with you that with the grace of Almighty, four days ago we made an agreement with Chine that it would lend us 55 billion rupees for Karachi and Lahore motorway project. We have very ambitious plan for Gawadar, its development for the development of Balochistan, we also have positive plans to upgrading Pakistan Railways, Dasu dam project after dasu dam project we would shift towards Bahsha Dam and then towards Port Qasim in Karachi; in Punjab and KPK provinces different power projects we have whole list of this. New projects are being initiated in Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan is also included. The whole country would be part of this development, and its positive effects would reach to every nook and corner of Pakistan and at each doorstep.
We believe that we should spend our energies in such projects rather than the way these politicians are spending. Now at the end of my speech I would like to thank all honorable members of Parliament, who are at my right and at my left, for the fact that they have given me a cause. I liked when Haji Bilour said that whatever they did it was for the supremacy of law and for the stability of the system. Haji sahib also said that the government did not take the step which it should have taken, now I don’t know what he was referring to. Haji sahib should be aware how such a situation should be handled. Now I would like Khawaja Saad rafique to brief the house about the dialogues which were held with both the parties (PAT, PTI), for he had been there all along during dialogues.
August 27, 2014
Islamabad
