No discussion about Nawaz held during PM’s Saudi visit: minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry has said that no discussion regarding Nawaz Sharif was held during the prime minister’s visit to Saudi Arabia.

In an interview, the minister said Saudi Arabia was the first country which was taking interest in energy and petroleum sectors with huge investment. “We wish that Saudi Arabia should make heavy investment in Pakistan,” he said.

Saudi Arabia and UAE were also interested in Gwadar projects and we wanted more countries to bring their money for investment purpose here, he added.

Due to rate of interest, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE could take the advantage and benefits from Pakistan, Ch Fawad said. Imran Khan’s main purpose was to change Pakistan by taking concrete steps for benefiting the people of this country, he said.

To a question, he said if the court ordered to bring back Pervez Musharraf, then the government would implement the orders. To another query, he said system could not run if civil and military had lack of support for each other.

Commenting on PTI’s performance during the past 20 days, he said the newly established government had introduced the third party induction after reviewing the CPEC policy, besides making structural reforms in FBR, he said.

He added that 25,00,000 saplings were planted by the government in just few weeks after coming into power besides bringing reforms in education system.

Expressing serious concerns over the policies of Pakistan Peoples Party’s government during 2008-13, he said Khursheed Shah had inducted about 1,63,000 people in different institutions of the country.

The government had been bearing the burden of PTV and PBC by providing over 600 billion rupees to these organizations. Government has established a task force led by Dr. Ishrat Hussain, which is working to improve the economy, he added.

To a query, he said the National Accountability Bureau should take measures to check Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s influence used for benefiting his son-in-law who took the money of the people in a private housing society scam.

He said the PTI government had taken action against land mafia and encroachers, adding a target had been set to get back 35 to 40,000 kanal of lands from the mafia.

He said in a couple of days, an operation would be launched against the encroachments and land mafia in Karachi.