ISLAMABAD:Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf has said that elections across the country should be on the same day and Parliament is ready to play its role in this regard.
He said this while talking to media representatives on the sideline of an event “Policy Dialogue on Climate Smart Agriculture and Food Security: Challenges and Way forward for Pakistan” organized by Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) in collocation with Syngenta, a leading agriculture company helping to improve global food security by enabling millions of farmers to make better use of available resources, here in Islamabad on Tuesday.
Raja Pervez Ashraf said that Parliament is the only place where struggle for democracy would succeed. He said consensus and dialogue is the only option for all political parties to lead the country out of Socio-economic challenges and Parliament is ready to develop consensus and dialogue among all political stakeholders in this perspective.
He said holding elections is the shared responsibility of three stakeholder including Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), incumbent government and all political parties and these three stakeholders should develop consensus in this regard.
In response to a query regarding hike in support prices of wheat for farmers, he said cost of agricultural inputs need to be rationalized to control this trend. Earlier, the National Assembly Speaker said that Pakistan is the least contributor to the global warming but the worst effectees of global climate challenge.
He said climate change, food security and sustainable agriculture are strongly interlinked. He said Pakistan has been facing sever impacts of climate change like drought, forest fires and recent devastating floods. The Speaker said that Pakistani nation has been successfully grappling these challenges and will emerge victorious out of present challenges. He praised the role and support of academia and intelligentsia for upgrading policy options.
Raja Pervez Ashraf said that Pakistan is a blessed state with all human resources and natural blessings, adding that Pakistani diaspora is playing pivotal role for finding new ways of transforming agriculture as per climate change.
He said these are our agriculture scientists who can invent new seeds, new techniques for growing agricultural production. He said Parliament performs a critical role in democratic society as an institution that represents and aggregates citizens’ interests in the drafting and scrutiny of legislation and oversight of the executive branch. He said Parliamentarians are uniquely placed to ensure the effective ratification of international climate change treaties and implementation of the Paris Agreement.