Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan said on Tuesday that the cabinet had rejected Maryam Nawaz’s request for her name to be removed from the Exit Control List.
“The cabinet has unanimously rejected the removal of a VIP’s name from the no-fly list,” said SAPM Awan, saying that the cabinet had acted on the advice of the subcommittee.
Awan was addressing a press conference with Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr Zafar Mirza.
Awan said a total of 24 cases were brought before the cabinet through an interior ministry summary in which no “VIP’s name” was highlighted. She added that out of the total 24, it was decided to add four names to the ECL, remove eight names from the list, the decision on eight cases was deferred and the request to remove one name was rejected.
“The cabinet unanimously rejected the request to remove the name from ECL of the VIP personality you are inquiring about,” she told reporters, referring to Maryam.
Awan said the cabinet showed consensus on the implementation of “one law and uniform law” throughout Pakistan and endorsed the recommendation of the cabinet sub-committee on ECL, which had opposed the request to strike Maryam’s name off the ECL.
Answering a question, the government spokesperson said the cabinet had decided to remove the name of Nawaz Sharif, Maryam’s father and former prime minister, from the ECL after “clear instructions” were given by the high court.
“The court had recommended that the cabinet remove his (Nawaz’s) name from the ECL and court orders were honoured,” Awan said, adding that in Maryam’s case the recommendation of the sub-committee was endorsed.
Maryam has in the past month approached the Lahore High Court twice with a request to have her name removed from the no-fly list. Following her first request, the high court had, on December 9, disposed of the petition and directed the federal government’s review committee to decide on the matter within seven days. However, when the government did not act upon the high court order, Maryam lodged another petition on December 21, seeking removal from the ECL so she could travel abroad to meet her ailing father. Taking up her petition, the court once again directed the PTI-led government to inform Maryam Nawaz on its decision regarding removal of her name from the ECL. Adjourning the hearing of the petition till December 26, the court asked Maryam to wait for the federal government’s decision on the matter.
Talking about the government’s decision to cut down prices of medicines, Dr Mirza said that the prime minister had given the green signal to reduce prices of 89 essential medicines.
Dr Mirza said that the government has to reduce the price of any medicine which is included in its essential medicines list by 10 percent. This, he said, was according to the medicine price control policy of 2018.
“However, we have given the approval to the federal government to cut down prices of essential medicines by 15 percent,” he said. “The new prices will come into effect immediately.”
Dr Mirza said that the prime minister had directed the health ministry to review its medicine pricing policy. “In the next two months, the government will be reviewing this policy and come up with a new one in its place,” he said.
He said that in the next few weeks, the government will come up with a policy to reform the pharmaceutical sector in Pakistan. Prime Minister Imran Khan had directed relevant authorities to bring down prices of medicinal drugs earlier this year.
Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan said that on recommendations of World Health Organization, cabinet has allowed one-time import of polio finger marker from India.
She added that government has also approved relief package for people affected by Indian firing across LoC. She said 33,498 families, who are direct victims of Indian firing along LoC, and each of them would get 5,000 rupees on quarterly basis under this package.
