Leaders of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have pledged to complete their unfinished agenda if came to power again in upcoming general elections.
They said the PPP was able to deliver on most of its manifesto points but could not implement some promises due to interventions from certain quarters.
Senator Saleem Mandviwala and Senator Saeed Ghani were speaking at a policy seminar on the PPP manifesto organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). It was the 8th in series of seminars planned to bring manifestos of political parties into discussion and assess their impact on electorates.
The PPP leaders said their election manifesto guaranteed provision of basic need to every citizen, empowerment of all citizens, inclusive growth, infrastructure development for future, new social contract, ensuring security and positive engagement of international community.
Presenting the manifesto, Senator Saleem Mandviwalla started with the provision of basic needs to citizens. He said: “The PPP pledges to increase education expenditure to 4.5 percent of GDP and would bridge the public-private and regional gaps in quality of education through establishment of ‘National Education Standard Council’.”
Providing glimpses on the PPP plan for inclusive and equitable growth he said, “The party would strive to reduce the budget deficit to less than 4 percent of GDP and would seek to adopt prudent policies to ensure current expenditure under control,” adding that growth rate of 6 percent would be achieved, GDP to saving would be increased to 15 percent, inflation would be kept under 6 percent, debt would be reduced to 60 percent, remittances would be increased to 2 billion whereas exports would be enhanced to $50 billion per annum in next 5 years.
Mandviwala said that Benazir Income Support Programme has proved to be a successful social protection system and the PPP is planning to double the monthly payments under the programme.
About the unemployment issue he said, “One million jobs would be created annually along with promotion of entrepreneurship for providing livelihood to the people.”
On energy crisis, Mandviwala admitted the shortcomings for not being able to resolve the crisis but blamed interventions for failure in not implementing their energy policy.
Senator Saeed Ghani talked on social contract of the PPP manifesto and said, “Health spending would be increased to 5 percent of GDP.”
“The party has vowed to eradicate polio and announced to launch ‘Mother and Child Care Support Programme’,” he said, which would be the flagship healthcare package for the underprivileged.
The senator said, “The PPP aims to bring down the population growth rate from 2 to 1.6 percent by 2018.”
He expressed that for the first time in Pakistan, the PPP has proposed 4 reserved seats for workers in National Assembly and 2 seats for workers in each provincial assembly.
According to him the manifesto also pledges to add one more seat in the parliament for minorities in capital area.
“Our party is committed to safeguard fundamental rights of every citizens and it would continue to work on implementation on all international conventions and treaties on human rights,” he added.
“There is significant reduction in the cases of enforced disappearances and the PPP has also introduced an Act in the parliament under which agencies are answerable to citizens on missing person cases,” he included.
On women empowerment, Senator Saeed Ghani was of the view that the PPP government in the last 5 years passed number of legislation to protect women rights and reduce violence against women.
He said, “The PPP wants to further empower women through education, entrepreneurship and anti-discriminatory and anti-harassment laws in the country. He also talked of reforms in civil services, local government, police and judiciary.
However, Faryal Gohar, an acclaimed human right activist and member of Board of Governors of the SDPI discussed that after completion of their tenure, the PPP leaders are trying to find excuses for their failure.
Citing Sri Lankan example, she said that even being in a state of the war for 30 years they improved their health and education system.
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