Shehbaz Sharif to chair party leaders meeting today

Pakistan Muslim League PML (N) president and former chief minister of Punjab Shehbaz Sharif will chair the party leaders meeting on Wednesday.

Shehbaz Sharif will preside over the meeting to be held at 2:00pm through video link. Members of the central executive committee, Senators, MNAs and MPAs belonging to PML-N will attend the meeting.

According to PML-N sources, the meeting will review the situation faced by the country in the wake of coronavirus epidemic.

Earlier Shehbaz Sharif addressed a press conference and urged the federal government to immediately reduce the policy rate by at least four per cent besides reducing interest payments so as to create a fiscal space to provide financial relief to vulnerable segments of Pakistan.

“We are all together, irrespective of political affiliations, in the fight against the pandemic of coronavirus, and it will be a sin to bring politics into a national cause to protect our people from the scourge of COVID-19,”

He said the welfare funds of federal agencies like Employees Old-age Benefit Institution (EOBI) should be used to solve the financial problems of Pakistanis.

He called upon the government to include an additional three million women in the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) and raise the poverty score to bring down bar of poverty line.

He proposed that those involved in the programme should be paid with Easypaisa so that the banks are not crowded and immediate distribution is initiated. He said the poor families in urban areas, which are not included in the BISP, should be registered and the government should pay Rs 3,000 per month to each family.