ISLAMABAD: President Arif Alvi on Thursday talked about the state of education in the country and said that more than 20 million children are out of school.
Addressing the Parliament’s joint session to mark the beginning of the last parliamentary year of the current National Assembly, the president said that even small countries of the world are way ahead of Pakistan when it comes to cyber power .
The president congratulated lawmakers for completing the fourth year in the national assembly and entering into the Parliament’s fifth year. The president also extended his wishes to Pakistan for completing 75 years of independence.
President Alvi, during his address, first spoke about the nation’s most pressing issue — the catastrophic floods across provinces, which have claimed over 1,700 lives so far.
“I would like to congratulate Pakistan’s armed forces who helped the flood-hit population despite challenges. I would also like to extend my gratitude to provincial governments, the federal government, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for their efforts to help victims,” he said, adding that if the support was not extended on a timely basis, it would have caused more human and economic losses.
“The flood damaged our crops and Pakistan should pay attention to crop insurance, as it will help us get international aid and deal with the challenges,” the president said.
“Agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and to improve the sector, it is important that we look at nations which can provide us with technical support in this regard,” he said, adding that we must learn from a nation like the Netherlands which is 19% smaller than Pakistan but is the second biggest exporter of food in the world.
Nearly 24 percent of the people are chronically stressed, the president said. “Stress is a silent killer.”
The President said National Accountability Bureau (NAB) should be stopped from hounding people. “The bureau needs to be depoliticised immediately.”
President Alvi was earlier slated to address the joint session on August 14, but the address was postponed following apprehensions of the coalition government.
President Alvi addressed the session with the hall nearly empty. There were only 15 lawmakers in the audience during the President’s speech, which later reduced to 12. Undeterred by the scanty audience, the president pressed ahead with his address.
Some of the PTI defectors were also present in the hall. Speaker asked the members to take their seats. Balochistan Awami Party lawmakers were in attendance too, while those from the PML-N, PPP, and JUI-F boycotted the President’s address without any warning.
On the other hand PTI’s members of the Parliament said they boycotted the session because they did not believe in this assembly. Out of 422, only 14 lawmakers were in the hall during the President’s address.
The president, under clause number 3 of Article 56, must address the Parliament after each general election and the first session of the parliamentary year to inform the lawmakers of the “causes of its summons”.
This will be the shortest parliamentary year since it would consist of 310 days, given that the NA was not dissolved earlier.
