By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday met President Dr Arif Alvi for the first time after assuming the PM’s office.
According to a press release issued by the President’s Secretariat, the leaders met at the Aiwan-e-Sadr (President House) and discussed issues related to the evolving political and economic situation in the country. The meeting comes as the PTI-PML-N clash over the removal of Punjab Governor Omer Sarfaraz Cheema.
After PML-N leader Hamza Shahbaz was elected chief minister of Punjab, Cheema said he would not administer oath to Hamza, claiming that the Punjab Assembly secretary’s report, the high court’s instructions and “the facts presented” to him raised questions about the validity of the chief minister’s election.
Since then there was speculation that Cheema would be removed from his position by the federal government. However, in a press conference on Sunday, the governor had claimed that the prime minister didn’t have the authority to remove the governor. “He [should send] a summary to the president because I am holding this office with the pleasure of the president of Pakistan. Until the president notifies [the order to remove me], I am holding this office,” Cheema had said.
Subsequently, PML-N leader Marriyum Aurangzeb said that the government was sending a summary to the president for his removal.
Following her statement, PTI’s Fawad Chaudhry tweeted that the president had denied removing Cheema. President Arif Alvi has also distanced himself from the newly elected government from the first day.
He skipped the oath-taking ceremony of PM Shehbaz on health grounds after which Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani had taken over the responsibility.
The president had also refused to administer oath to federal cabinet members compelling the government to postpone the ceremony. Eventually, it was Sanjrani again who administered the oath to the cabinet.
During his maiden speech at the Parliament as PM, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had blamed the “mismanagement” of the previous Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government for the prevailing energy crisis in the country, declaring that the ongoing loadshedding had nothing to do with the power generation capacity .
“Today there is loadshedding in the country due to gross mismanagement and incompetence of the previous government,” Mr Sharif had told the National Assembly on Saturday.
He said the country had the capacity of generating 35,000 megawatts of electricity, but due to the closure of different power plants running on gas and oil, different parts of the country were facing loadshedding for the last few days.
The prime minister said that soon after assuming the charge, he had received briefings from officials of the ministries of petroleum and energy over the loadshedding issue.
