MNA from Chitral warned against putting agri loan waiver on the back-burner

CHITRAL: President of the Nazimeen Forum Upper Chitral, Muhammad Pervez Lal, has slammed MNA Shahzada Iftikharuddin for deliberately putting the waiver of the agricultural loans in Chitral into the back burner even after clear announcement made by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over a year ago.

In a press statement, he said that after the devastating floods Prime Minister Sharif visited Chitral in July 2015 and addressing a public gathering in Kuragh announced that all agriculture loans of the people of the calamity-hit Chitral would be waived.

Soon after the announcement, the MNA in order to get credit started claiming in all the available forums that the prime minister announced to waive the loans on his request and personal effort. He also claimed that Mr Sharif had waived all the agricultural loans and a notification in that regard would be issued within days.

On May 25, 2016, the people of upper Chitral held a protest against the government for dilly-dayllying the  issuance of notification. The MNA at that time was present in Mastuj and came to announce in front of the protesters that the government had already waived all the agricultural loans, including that of the Micro Finance Bank. He even told the protesters that if the federal government did not waive the Micro Finance loans he would pay to the bank from his own pocket on behalf of the loan takers.

The people on that occasion thanked the MNA and went back to their homes. But a few months later, all he banks including the ZTBL and Micro Finance, sent notices to the people to pay the original loans along with the interest accumulated during the time after the floods. Not only this, the banks have now also started registering police cases against the people for not returning their loans.

The Nazimmen Forum leader asked the MNA to get the notification for the loan waiver issued as promised without any further delay in order to save the public from further humiliation at the hands of the bank officials and he police.

He warned that if the MNA continued his delaying tactics and if the bank officials did not stop taking action against the people, a protest sit-in would be organized in front of the hotel of the MNA in the Chitral town.