Islamabad (Staff Report/Agencies): Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed that the government will spend “every penny” of donations pledged at a donors’ conference in Geneva for prosperity and rehabilitation of the flood-hit people.
Addressing a press conference flanked alongside the federal cabinet members, Shehbaz said the government would continue to help the people affected by cataclysmic floods till their complete rehabilitation.
“At the conference, pledges worth $9.7 billion were announced for the Pakistan flood victims,” the PM said, congratulating his federal ministers for the hard work they and their teams put in before this critical conference.
Giving a breakdown of the amount pledged at the conference, the prime minister said Saudi Arabia committed $1 billion followed by China $100m, Qatar $25m, Canada $18.6m, Denmark $3.8m, European Union €87m, France €380m, Germany €84m, Italy €23m and Azerbaijan $2m.
The premier said the amount pledged by “friendly countries” showed respect for Pakistan, adding the countries would never have committed the amount had there been reservations over financial irregularities.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, in his address, termed the PM’s foreign policy as “successful”, saying the government achieved “two targets with a single shot”. He said the government had targeted to raise eight billion dollars from the conference but we surpassed this target, which is a befitting response to the negative propagandists.
Bilawal said we will also have to manage fifty percent from our own resources for the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase, appealing the people to come forward for the humanitarian assistance of flood victims who are braving extreme weather conditions under the open skies. The FM assured the flood-affected population that their recovery and rehabilitation is the mission of the government.