ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has done in two weeks what his predecessor, Imran Khan, could not even think of doing in his four years in office.
In a statement, presenting a review of the two-week performance of Sharif’s government, Aurangzeb said that the supply of affordable goods like sugar and wheat flour had been started to the afflicted people.
Prime Minister Sharif reduced the price of sugar from Rs85 a kilogramme to Rs70 whereas the 10-kilogramme bag of flour has come down to Rs400 from Rs550.
She said that inflation, which had reached an all-time high in four years, had started to come down gradually.
Marriyum said that the PM had issued directives to end loadshedding from May 1 and in two weeks, 20 out of 27 closed power generating units had been made operational.
Aurangzeb said that during the past two weeks, steps were taken to supply oil and gas in record time to run power plants.
Industries that have been shut down for over a year due to technical glitches were starting to come back to life, she maintained.
The Peshawar More-New Airport Metro project, which had been lingering on for the past four years, was launched and made operational within days.
Moreover, she said that preparations had been started for the feasibility of connecting the Metro from New Islamabad Airport to the motorway and Faizabad, and its extension to Bara Kahu and Rawat and construction work started on the metro station on the motorway.
She said that construction work of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam has been sped up and a new deadline for its completion in 2026 had been given instead of 2029. The PM, she said, also ordered the preparation of the feasibility of a modern hospital for the treatment of the local population.
Sharif also laid the foundation stone of sections 1 and 2 of the Kuchlar-Khuzdar highway from two to four lanes and then six lanes in the next phase.
The prime minister also announced the plan for Pakistan’s most advanced technical university to train Balochistan youth, she said.
Sharif also ordered the feasibility to run metro in Quetta like Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Karachi.
The prime minister had announced to provide assistance to the poorest 500,000 people from Balochistan through Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), she added.
She reminded former prime minister Khan that this was called practical service with “Pakistan speed”.
Addressing a press conference later in the day, she said it is the public, not the media, that is “blacking out” Imran Khan.
She said when the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) was asked for data regarding which channels were restricted from covering the PTI’s activities, the body said no such information is available.
“It is the public of Pakistan that is blacking you out from politics,” she added.
“During our stint in power, 80 per cent of the programmes were against our government. So why is there a media blackout now?” he asked.
Marriyum said that during the PTI’s tenure, journalists were roughed up, shot at and jailed while their programmes were forced off-air.
“In whose time was the [new] media regulatory authority being set up?” she asked while referring to the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) that was “disbanded” by the coalition government shortly after coming to power.
When the media houses had refused to be influenced by the PTI government’s thuggery, they were pressured financially.
The incumbent government did not believe in censorship and Pemra was always independent during PML-N’s governments, she said.
“You cannot do politics by lying. You are being blacked out by the people of Pakistan [because of] your performance.”
