Bilawal urges talks with PTI and Fazl as economy strains

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Friday that Pakistan's economy was in trouble and that the federal government should open talks with the PTI and Maulana Fazlur Rehman instead of fighting them, speaking at the foundation-stone ceremony of a 600-bed hospital in Larkana.

The PPP chairman said a worldwide economic crisis was hitting Pakistanis as well, and that dialogue was the better course than quarrelling with everyone. He asked how the country could progress if it kept fighting the PTI and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Aaj News reported.

Confrontation was not confined to politics, he said. The country was also at odds with Afghanistan and India, and meeting its economic challenges while fighting on every front would not be possible.

Bilawal, a former foreign minister, advised the federal government to set aside political differences and concentrate on the economy, and to stay in contact with provincial governments and political stakeholders.

He described his recent meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as positive, saying a strategy had been drawn up jointly and that he wanted to work with the federal government. He said he had invited the prime minister to hold federal cabinet meetings in different provinces, and that a meeting would be held in Karachi to improve coordination between the centre and Sindh. He thanked the prime minister for an improvement in the position of federal projects in Sindh.

On federal development spending in the province, he said projects had been launched in Sindh between 2008 and 2013, when the PPP was in power and the centre and the province worked together. For a long time since, federal projects in Sindh had been next to nothing, and the Public Sector Development Programme carried almost no schemes for the province. The Sindh chief minister would be able to say which projects had received federal support, he said.

Bilawal also defended Sindh's record on higher education, saying the aim was to make educational institutions stand on their own feet although they still faced difficulties despite government support. No province, including Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, gave as much money to higher education as Sindh, he said. According to him, the federal government is spending Rs60 billion on higher education across the country, while the Sindh government gives universities grants of Rs45 billion.

He also said some people were busy with seminars, and that he would attend if one were held.

Separately, Senate Deputy Chairman Syedal Khan Nasir said putting Pakistan on the path of economic stability and sustainable development was the first priority, and spoke of drawing on the mineral resources of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, UrduPoint reported. The report did not say where he was speaking.