ISLAMABAD : An accountability court in Islamabad on Tuesday adjourned the Narowal Sports City case against PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal and others until October 20.

The PML-N leader appeared before the court as it resumed hearing the case instituted against him and others by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). During the hearing, the bureau’s prosecutor informed the judge that the reference against the accused is in a final phase and would soon be filed before the court.

The court, thus, adjourned the hearing until October 20 with direction for the national graft buster to file the reference at the earliest.

At the previous hearing, Ahsan Iqbal’s lawyer had slammed the bureau saying it had failed to file a reference despite arresting his client. He said the NAB chairman also failed to come up with explanation on delay in filing the reference.

The judge asked the NAB prosecutor to explain as to why the reference against Ahsan Iqbal was not filed yet, to which he replied that the reference was sent to Headquarters for approval and will be filed once it is approved.

Ahsan is accused of using funds of the federal government and Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) for a sports city in Narowal.

NAB had announced to initiate a probe into alleged violation of rules in the construction of the National Sports City project –  a day after its inauguration by the then President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain.

DNA

FAISALABAD, SEPT 21 – Government is fully committed to provide easy access to much needed capital to our youth ranging from 21 to 45 years of age so that they could fully exploit their entrepreneurial skills to further strengthen the national economy, said Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Youth Affairs and Chairman PM Youth Program Mr. Usman Dar.

Addressing a cheque distribution ceremony under Kamyat Youth Program (KYP) in the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry here today, he said that the government has allocated Rs.100 billion for the first phase of this program.He appreciated the skills of Pakistani youth and said that the successive government failed to exploit their God-gifted capabilities and thus they became a burden instead of gearing up the pace of national progress and prosperity. The micro, cottage and SME sectors faced continuous crisis as the successive government did not concentrate on these segments, he said, adding that the Prime Minister is fully aware of the importance of the textile sector and is considering setting up a full fledged textile ministry very soon to focus on the SME sector.

Regarding Kamyab Youth Program (KYP), he said that the SME sector was badly ignored in the past despite 80% share in exports and 25-30% share in GDP. “In spite of its excellent performance, only 6% of total released loans were gone to the SME sector”, he added.

He said that KYP will also generate one million jobs for our youths. “Government is also working on “Ease of doing business” and “Cost of doing business”, he said and added that taxes would also be curtailed within next few months, enabling our exporters to compete with their international competitors.

Regarding high rates of electricity and gas, he said that it is due to the ill-conceived policies of previous governments that restrain the present government to trim it. However, on the direction of the Prime Minister, the refund claims of the last many years are being cleared on top priority basis.

About the popularity of KYP in Faisalabad division, he said that as many as 21,000 youth have uploaded demand of Rs.27 billion. “The scrutiny of these applications will be started very soon as all 21 banks have been involved in it”, he added.

He further said that loans worth Rs.1.3 billion have already been released to 300 SMEs under this program while loans of Rs.5 billion have also been sanctioned for 6000-7000 small units. “These units will get loans within a couple of months”, he said and added that under this program, 100,000 to 150,000 youth will also get jobs within 1-1.5 years. He claimed that all these loans would be disbursed purely on merit basis without any political consideration.

Mian Farrukh Habib, Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Railways said that the PTI government is making strenuous efforts to resolve business related problems of Faisalabad. “Credit goes to the PTI which had announced its first textile policy even before coming into the power”, he said and added that under this policy subsidized gas and electricity was ensured to the export sector which not only geared up the industrial process but also played a pivotal role in enhancing our exports. “After corona our industries are now working with full capacity while many of them have advance orders in hand”, he added.

Regarding the weaving sector, he said that it was switched over from export to domestic production but after receiving hefty export orders, it again started producing export products.

He said that the government is fully supporting the youth so that they could contribute their productive role in the overall development of the national economy.

Rana Sikandar Azam Khan President FCCI in his address of welcome told that this chamber is safeguarding the legitimate interests of 15 million people of this region. He claimed that almost all major issues and problems of the business community have already been solved while the current executive body has also purchased five acres of land in M-III Industrial City for construction of a new and state-of-the-art FCCI complex.

However, he requested Special Assistant to PM Mr. Usman Dar to support their pending issues of subsidized electricity and gas for the industrial sector.

He said that Faisalabad is a city of power looms which could not bear electricity at the rate of 13 cent. This issue should also be brought into the notice of Prime Minister so that it could be resolved without any further delay.

He appreciated the KYP and demanded that its application forms should be made simple and easy. Similarly, the limit of loan without security should be enhanced from Rs.1 million to Rs.5 million.

Later, Rana Sikandar Azam Khan along with SVP Saqib Majeed and VP Abdul Waheed Sheikh presented FCCI shield to Mr. Usman Dar.

Earlier Mr. Usman Dar planted a sapling of araucaria in the lawn of FCCI. He also distributed cheques under KYP in addition to inaugurating a help desk of KYP in FCCI

DNA

ISLAMABAD, SEPT 21 – Special Assistant to Prime Minister, Malik Amin Aslam, said that while the implementation of the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme across the country is full swing, all-out efforts are being taken to ensure its effective monitoring, reporting and verification at all levels for attainment of desired outcome of enhanced environmental development and climate change resilience of the country.

Addressing the participants of the high-level event ‘Third Party Monitoring of Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme’, as a chief guest here on Monday at the local hotel Malik Amin said further that in management projects and programmes, information regarding its transparent implementation is not always readily accessible to everyone and is on a need-to-know basis for some.

The project or programme directors, managers and relevant key stakeholders are the ones with access to all the information. This lack of transparency can lead to public distrust and resentment and hamper publicity of the programme and project activities, Malik Amin added.

He said, “We hope that independent and impartial monitoring and evaluation by third party of the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami (TBTTP), would help systematically measure and assess programme activities across the country through various internationally-used tools and techniques and provide support to establish and maintain public trust about the activities.”

Meanwhile, recalling the pressing reasons behind success story of the Billion Tree Tsunami Programme (BTTP), upon philosophy of which the TBTTP is built, the special assistant Malik Amin said that tackling challenges of timber mafia, enhanced community participation, sustained focus on both regeneration of new forests and reignvigoratig the existing forests and lastly the enhanced transparency through the third party monitoring and evaluation of the BTTP’s activities across the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province were the key driving forces behind the successfulness of the afforestation project.

The TBTTP success story, under which 1.18 billion trees were planted across the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province against the target of one billion trees, mustered not only international support but also it was globally recognised by various international organisations including the World Economic Forum, United Nations Development Programme and UN-Food and Agriculture Organisation as the best replicable climate change mitigation and adaptation initiative in other countries.

Malik Amin Aslam said that thanks to heightened political support by the KPK provincial government, the TBTTP not only surpassed the target but also helped restore the province’s ailing forestry and wildlife sectors, creating thousands of green jobs for unemployed women and young people.

Malik Amin pointed out that every country is bound to meetreporting requirements to various multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) of different international organisations such as UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). However, the third-party monitoring and evaluation of the TBTTP would significantly help meet the country’s requirements for reporting on progress on environmental development, conservation and protection of forests and wildlife resources and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Minister of State for Climate Change, Zartaj Gul, said that setting up of the Third-Party Monitoring and Evaluation System for impartial assessment of the TBTTP activities across the country has present government’s strong backing.

“The third-party monitoring and evaluation would demonstrate to the global community and the peoples of Pakistan that the incumbent government of the Prime Minister Imran Khan is seriously committed to accountability for the spending of public money at all levels and in every form,” Zartaj Gul emphasized.

Highlighting the prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision for clean and green Pakistan as a part of his green agenda, the state minister Ms. Gul said that under the overarching PM’s flagship Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme, the country has gained global applause for adopting the green agenda.

“Because, adopting the ambitious green agenda is significantly helping to pull out the country from the soaring issues of environmental degradation, deforestation and illegal wildlife hunting and poaching.

Giving overall overview of the roles and responsibilities of the Third-Party Monitoring and Evaluation Consortium, the Secretary Climate Change Minister, Naheed Shah Durrani told the participants that the third party monitoring and evaluation would be conducted jointly by the UN-Food and Agriculture Organisation, International Union for Conservation of Nature – Pakistan (IUCN-P) and World Wide Fund for Nature – Pakistan (WWF-P), which will operate as a consortium, which would conduct the third-party monitoring and evaluation of TBTTP from 2020 to 2024 across the country.

She said further that the IUCN-Pakistan would be responsible for the coordination, logical framework development, proposal development and biodiversity assessment; FAO would be responsible for the database tools for regular field data collection and periodic forest cover change assessment through remote sensing using UN-FAO’s collect earth tool, and provide technical support on the integrated watershed management, forest landscape restoration including rangeland management; whereas,  WWF – Pakistan would carry out field sampling and monitoring except in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Director-General of the WWF-Pakistan Hammad Khan Naqi said that the proposal for Third-Party Monitoring and Evaluation would be rolled out to evaluate maximum 30% of the plantation sites, 30% for Wildlife Conservation, 100% of the Protected Areas.

However, the actual achievement would depend on effective coordination and cooperation between all the members of third-party consortium and provincial and federal stakeholders involved in the implementation of TBTTP, said Mahmood Akhtar Cheema, the country representative IUCN-Pakistan.

He also highlighted that the Third-Party Monitoring and Evaluation Consortium would yield numerous benefits for the country such as enhanced credibility, public trust, meeting international reporting requirements on various multilateral environmental agreements and government’s heightened commitment in transparent utilisation of public funds allocated for the TBTTP, the country’s largest afforestation programme.

ISLAMABAD, SEP 21 (DNA) – Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Monday met Prime Minister Imran Khan. The members of the federal cabinet and other officials were also present in the meeting. The meeting was given briefing on the Indian aggression along the Line of Control (LoC). The meeting also discussed current security situation of the country.

Earlier today, while stressing on fast and effective implementation over the National Action Plan (NAP), the military leadership of Pakistan has stressed that Pakistan Army is, directly or indirectly, not associated with any political activity in the country.

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DG ISI) Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed met parliamentary leaders last week and discussed administrative affairs of Gilgit-Baltistan.

It has been learnt that the military leadership stressed to keep the army away from political matters. Pakistan Army will always help the civil administration and has no role in election reforms and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the military leadership said. =DNA

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ISLAMABAD, SEP 21 (DNA) – Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser has urged the international community to play its role for the resolution of Kashmir dispute.

Addressing a seminar organised by Parliamentary Kashmir Committee and Institute of Conflict Resolution on the occasion of International Peace Day in Islamabad on Monday, he said that the resolution of Kashmir dispute as per the UN Security Council resolutions is imperative for regional peace and stability.

The speaker said Kashmiris were denied the basic necessities of life for the last one year. The government was effectively playing its role to highlight Kashmir issue at the international forums, he noted.

The Speaker said India was committing grave human rights violations in Kashmir and 22000 women became widows, thousands of youth were martyred and hundreds of women were raped.

The Parliament will focus on the Kashmir issue and will continue efforts to help resolve it according to aspirations of the Kashmiri people. He said it was imperative to resolve disputes peacefully to achieve sustainable peace in the world.

The United Nations should play its role to resolve the disputes of Kashmir and Palestine, he added.

Condemning the blatant human rights violations in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K), the Speaker said that Indian troops had been given free hand to persecute the innocent and armless Kashmiri people.

He said Pakistan had been making effective efforts to expose the evil face of India before the world.

Asad said the teachings of Islam stressed on peace, adding peace could be attained in the world by following the teachings of Islam. He said Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) had special attachment to peace and his followers could bring peace in the world.

He said people of Kashmir and Palestine were offering sacrifices for their rights and peaceful existence. The international community should play its role for achieving peace in the world, he added. =DNA

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