Khan tells Pak­istani Scots: I shall root out cor­rup­tion

Ex-crick­eter makes his pitch for votes amon­gasians in Glas­gow Call for tur­bines deals to help lo­cal peo­ple

The Herald - - NEWS - MATTY SUT­TON MARISA DUFFY

SCOT­LAND’S Pak­istani com­mu­nity turned out in force to lis­ten to pres­i­den­tial hopeful Im­ran Khan prom­ise change and an end to cor­rup­tion in Pak­istan.

More than 1500 peo­ple packed into the Clyde Suite at the Mar­riot Ho­tel in Glas­gow to wel­come the for­mer crick­eter turned politi­cian.

The leader of the Pak­istan Tehreek-e-in­saf (PTI) party ad­dressed the crowd in his na­tive lan­guage, promis­ing that, if elected next year, he will in­tro­duce fun­da­men­tal re­forms to im­prove the coun­try.

He promised to stamp out cor­rup­tion by forc­ing politi­cians to de­clare their as­sets, elim­i­nat­ing con­flict of in­ter­est by stop­ping politi­cians from own­ing busi­nesses and bring­ing forth tax re­form.

For the first time, Pak­ista­nis liv­ing over­seas will be able to vote in the coun­try’s elec­tions – and many of those in yes­ter­day’s au­di­ence were dressed in PTI hats, T-shirts and mer­chan­dise.

Glas­gow SNP MSP Humza Yousaf and Glas­gow Cen­tral MP Anas Sar­war, for Labour, both gave speeches be­fore Mr Khan stood to speak.

Mr Khan, whose slo­gan read “PTI will change Pak­istan, to­gether we can”, said the lon­gawaited change needed in Pak­istan had come.

He an­nounced pol­icy changes that would be im­ple­mented in­stantly to bring about good gov­er­nance, erad­i­cate cor­rup­tion, re­form ed­u­ca­tion and re­vi­talise young peo­ple.

Other points in­cluded medium and long-term pol­icy changes to tackle en­ergy de­fi­ciency and op­ti­mise nat­u­ral re­sources.

Mr Yousaf said: “The Pak­istani com­mu­nity here in Scot­land has con­trib­uted so much. We con­trib­ute through the econ­omy, our cul­ture and even through our cui­sine.

“As proud as we are of be­ing Scot­tish, we have never for­got­ten our roots, never for­got­ten our her­itage and we have never for­got­ten our his­tory, our home is Pak­istan. This great na­tion is pos­si­bly go­ing through what is its dark­est hour.”

He cited the prob­lems the coun­try has en­dured as a re­sult of the war on ter­ror, as well as prob­lems of in­fra­struc­ture and the cor­rup­tion of its of­fi­cials.

He said: “There ex­ists a ray of hope hid­den amongst the dark­ness, and that ray of hope is Pak­istan led by Im­ran Khan.

“I be­lieve Pak­istan is on the verge of some­thing mo­men­tous, it is on the cusp of some­thing quite his­toric. There is a wave of change that car­ries the hopes and dreams of o r di nar y Pak­ista­nis.”

Mr Sar­war added: “What unites ev­ery sin­gle per­son in this room is our love for the great coun­try of Pak­istan.”

Im­ran Adrees, PTI’S Scot­land pres­i­dent, said it was im­por­tant for Mr Khan to speak in Scot­land. He added: “We want him to give the mes­sage here – he is not just pop­u­lar in our com­mu­nity, he is pop­u­lar with Scot­tish peo­ple as well.

“Scot­tish peo­ple know he is an hon­est per­son and he can make a change so I want him to come and tell the com­mu­nity he will make change in Pak­istan, he will fin­ish the cor­rup­tion in Pak­istan, he will fin­ish ter­ror­ism in Pak­istan.

“We want to live the same way that we are liv­ing in this coun­try, peacefully. We want Pak­istan to be­come more like Scot­land. The re­ac­tion here is ex­cel­lent.

“S o many peo­ple are dis­ap­pointed be­cause they wanted to come but we just don’t have ca­pac­ity. It is an ex­cel­lent wel­come for Im­ran Khan.”

Aci Faraz Qureshi, 29, from Newlands in Glas­gow, who was in the au­di­ence, said: “Im­ran Khan is say­ing Pak­istan needs change and we need change as well in our politi­cians, that is why we are here to sup­port him. It is im­por­tant that he has come to Scot­land be­cause lots of our com­mu­nity is here as well and they have come here to sup­port him.”

Arif Mehmood, 27, from Bridgeton in Glas­gow, a stu­dent at the Univer­sity of the West of Scot­land, was also at the rally.

He said: “Peo­ple say some bad things about Pak­istan nowa­days, re­gard­ing ter­ror­ism and bomb at­tacks, but that is just be­cause of the cor­rupt politi­cians.

“Once they are erad­i­cated from the coun­try then we will come to know what Pak­istan has and what is the po­ten­tial of the Pak­istani peo­ple.

“It is tremen­dous that Im­ran Khan is in Scot­land. I am in shock. I can’t be­lieve I have seen him.”

Gl a s g o w b u s i n e s s men Mo­hammed Ran­zan and Shoket Mo­barik in­vited Mr Khan to Glas­gow and were in­stru­men­tal in or­gan­is­ing the con­fer­ence. UR­GENT ac­tion must be taken to en­sure com­mu­ni­ties af­fected by large wind­farm de­vel­op­ments can reap long-term ben­e­fits.

The Joseph Rown­tree Foun­da­tion said in a new re­port that more must be done to en­sure grow­ing wind-farm ex­pan­sion is matched by help for neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Its re­search looked into the im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment, the un­equal dis­tri­bu­tion of eco­nomic im­pact and the con­cen­tra­tion of de­vel­op­ments in dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties.

It con­cluded that a mech­a­nism for deals be­tween de­vel­op­ers and lo­cal peo­ple must be put in place now – be­fore the next wave of in­vest­ment takes place.

The pro­vi­sion and ex­pan­sion of com­mu­nity ben­e­fit funds – in both size and ge­o­graphic scope – are nec­es­sary to im­prove the eco­nomic, so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal prospects of af­fected ar­eas, it is claimed.

The re­port, Wind En­ergy and Jus­tice for Dis­ad­van­taged C o mmu­nit i e s, ac­knowl­edges there is scope to learn from good prac­tice across the UK, where or­gan­i­sa­tions have man­aged to in­crease the level of com­mu­nity ben­e­fits that de­vel­op­ers pro­vide.

The Stir­ling­shire vil­lage of Fin­try was cited as an ex­am­ple. Com­mu­nity ben­e­fits took the form of own­er­ship of a 2.5MW tur­bine, within a wider farm, which will even­tu­ally gen­er­ate an an­nual in­come of £400,000.

Re­port au­thor Dr Richard Cow­ell said: “We are see­ing the size of com­mu­nity ben­e­fit funds in­crease in line with the grow­ing scale of wind farm de­vel­op­ments.

“That presents a huge op­por­tu­nity to ad­dress the dis­ad­van­tages faced by those liv­ing along­side wind farms.”

The re­port comes in the wake of a row over wind­farm com­mu­nity ben­e­fit funds. Ear­lier this month, re­new­able en­ergy de­vel­oper In­fin­ergy said Scot­land’s coun­cils were in­creas­ingly pock­et­ing the cash against res­i­dents’ wishes and us­ing it across the whole lo­cal au­thor­ity area.

Main picture: Light­house Images

POW­ER­FUL WORDS: Glas­gow Cen­tral MP Anas Sar­war, left, and MSP Humza Yousaf, far left, both gave speeches in sup­port of for­mer crick­eter Im­ran Khan be­fore he ad­dressed 1500 Scot­land-based Pak­ista­nis at the Mar­riot Ho­tel in Glas­gow, pledg­ing to stamp out...

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