President Arif Alvi on Friday said that if all stakeholders agree, he can voluntarily arbitrate between stakeholders on key issues facing the country, including the date of the next elections, consensus-based economic charter and the way to proceed with key appointments.
President Dr. Arif Alvi called upon all the governments and political parties to pause politics and urged all stakeholders to launch a nationwide drive to mobilize the people of Pakistan, businesses, civil society and humanitarian organizations to assist civil and military administrations in their rescue and relief efforts to rehabilitate the flood victims and for the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure.
The President made these remarks during a meeting with senior media-persons, who called on him here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.
Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami, Suhail Warraich, Gauhar Zahid Malik, Awais Rauf and Nawab Kaifee attended the meeting, a press release issued by the President’s Media Wing here said.
Talking to the senior journalists about his visit to the flood-hit areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Southern Punjab, and the low-lying areas of Sindh and Balochistan, the President said that this unprecedented catastrophe had been induced due to global warming and climate change whereas Pakistan contributed less than 1% to the global carbon emissions.
He further said that the developed world, being the major contributor to global warming and climate change, should proportionally bear the burden of rescue and relief operations, reconstruction of damaged communication infrastructure, rebuilding the destroyed houses and compensating the people for lost property, livestock and standing crops.
The President highlighted that the climate catastrophe had affected more than 33 million people; 1,100 people including over 350 children had lost their lives; more than 1,600 people had been injured; over 1 million houses had been partially or completely destroyed; entire villages had been wiped out; over 735,000 livestock had perished; 2 million acres of crops had been inundated, and the communications infrastructure had been severely damaged.
He also emphasized the need for launching a nationwide drive for increasing the forest cover in the country, shifting from fossil fuels to alternative means of energy and building delay-action and large dams to minimize the effects of climate change.
While replying to another question, the President reiterated that all the institutions, including judiciary and the army, should not be used for political point scoring, as such comments were not in the greater national interest.
He said there was a need to understand that any comment, narrative or analysis, having the potential to create division within the institutions or between the institutions and people of Pakistan, could never be in national interest.
The President called upon all the political parties, opinion leaders, eminent members of the civil society and the media persons to remain within the confines of Article 19 of the Constitution and relevant laws and regulations while discussing or commenting on institutions.
He said that almost 90% of social media was providing knowledge, information, education and entertainment to the masses at no or nominal cost which was a healthy trend.