FAISALABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Monday said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif is legally and morally bound to bring his elder brother Nawaz Sharif back to the country as per his commitment given in the court.
Talking to the media along with Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib, Fawad said PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif was allowed to go abroad for treatment after Shehbaz submitted an affidavit in the court that he would bring his brother back in case the former does not return.
He said the government has no personal enmity with Nawaz, who should better return home on his own and face the cases pending in the courts.
He said the Sharifs do not have any evidence to prove the legitimate purchase of the apartments owned by them in London. The public has every right to ask them to give details of the properties bought by them through ill-gotten money, he added.
He said the opposition leaders are only doing politics of hatred and indulged in attacking the state institutions.
Terming JUI’s victory in the recent local bodies election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as an “unfortunate incident”, he said that it is lamentable that Maulana Fazlur Rehman is leading national politics. “Failure of major political parties in the country pave way for sectarian-based parties and that is harmful to the country,” he added.
Fawad extended an olive branch to the opposition parties and urged them to coordinate with the government for reforming the system. He advised the opposition parties to review their approach as their frailty is not in the national interest.
He said all political parties must adopt parliamentary norms and work in unison in the parliament to carry forward the agenda of system reforms. The government wants to introduce election reforms and needs the opposition’s cooperation in this regard, he added.
He ruled out the possibility of giving any relief to those who have been facing corruption cases. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-led government would continue to implement its accountability agenda as its voters want the corrupt people behind bars, he added.
The people, he said, are not satisfied with the accountability process as the plunderers like Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari have not yet returned the looted public money.
He said the next general election would be held in 2023 and its preparations would start by the month of August this year.
He said the government has successfully completed negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the amended finance bill would be passed by the National Assembly by the mid of current month.
He said the government is making all-out efforts to control inflation. There has been impact of global inflation on the masses and initiatives are being taken to provide them relief, he added.
The increase in the prices of essential commodities, he said, is natural as the country has become a net importer of petrol, edible oil and pulses. As normalcy has returned to the global market, the prices of imported items would decline soon, he hoped.
