Altaf wants party to help solve crisis
By Our Staff Correspondent

LONDON, Oct 20: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has asked the Coordination Committee of the party to prepare working papers on issues confronting the country to help restore the institutions that had been destroyed by the former government and to take the country out of the present crises.

Speaking to party workers in Karachi by the telephone from London, the MQM chief said that being the third largest political party in Pakistan, the MQM had its own programmes to rescue the country from the current economic and political crises. He said a pragmatic programme was required to solve the problems with which the country was faced. Instead of finding temporary remedies, he asserted, attention should be paid to removing the cause of these problems.

Altaf Hussain asked the Coordination Committee to take into consideration the following issues and questions while preparing its working papers on different issues.

. How to complete the devolution of power - i.e. transfer of power from centre to provinces and from provinces to the lowest level of the local bodies.

. How to initiate independent, transparent and fair accountability process.

. How to repay the foreign loans.

. What measures should be taken to increase the per capita income and how to control inflation.

. What changes should be brought into the taxation system; how to recover taxes; how to increase national savings and how to encourage local and foreign investment.

. What steps are required to increase agricultural production as well as to promote small business.

. What steps are required to end unemployment and what measures should be taken to create new employment opportunities.

. What steps are required to improve the health and education sectors. . How provincial autonomy should be ensured.

. How to control local administration or what steps are required to depoliticize local administration and to improve local bodies functioning.

. How to encourage people of smaller provinces, including minorities, to join the armed forces as well as to ensure their participation in nation building.

. How to strengthen national integrity, reduce ethnic and religious tensions and promote cultural pluralism.

. How to establish a consistent and stable relationship between a civilian government and the armed forces.

. What kind of code of ethics should be there for political parties; how to ensure free and fair elections without any interference from any side.

. How to keep judiciary independent and what measures are required to strengthen this institution.

. How to achieve supremacy of law.

. What kind of constitutional reforms are required for the country.

. How to protect and guarantee the rights of the women and encourage them to involve in nation building.

. What policy the MQM will have for religious minorities and how to include them in national development.

. What steps should be taken to end sectarian fighting and to control religious fundamentalism and how to promote fraternity among different religious sects.

. What measures are required to ensure freedom of the Press. . How to help improve the country's relations with neighbouring countries.

. What is the solution to the Kashmir issue.

. What will be the MQM's policy on the nuclear issue.

. How to increase literacy rate in the country.

Mr Hussain asked the Coordination Committee to prepare working papers on all these issues on an emergent basis.

He also appealed to intellectuals, technocrats, students, ordinary people and intelligentsia to submit their recommendations on these issues to the MQM headquarters in Karachi or to fax them on Karachi number 6329955.