LAHORE – The Punjab government has cancelled 18 MoUs signed with the US for different development projects, provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said Thursday as he proposed the Centre to slash defence budget by up to 50 percent to end its reliance on foreign aid.
The PML-N central leader said that the Punjab government has broken the begging bowl by rejecting foreign aid, adding that the federal government should follow suit to by adopting a policy of self-reliance. He proposed the federal government to cut defence budget by up to 50 percent, saying that the major chunk of foreign aid and loans goes to the armed forces while debt servicing takes up most part of the rest. “In my opinion, at least half of the defence budget should be cut immediately. What use of such grants and loans that provide no relief to the masses? Every year the nation spends billions on defence. We need not waste money on it, as we are an atomic power and need not further expand our military activities. Atom bombs are sufficient for our defence, and there is a need to divert our main budget allocations to the uplift of the masses,” the law minister said.
To queries on ‘no to foreign aid’ slogan, lately raised by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Sana said that Punjab has cancelled 18 MoUs signed with the US in fields of education, health, water purification and road construction, adding that these projects were in the feasibility stage.
He made it clear that the new policy of Punjab solely bans the US aid but puts no bar on grants from friendly countries, including China, Japan, S Arabia, UAE, Iran and Turkey. We do not want confrontation with the US rather we wanted to convey the message that we wouldn’t compromise on our sovereignty by accepting aid.