ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Thursday opposition party leader Shehbaz Sharif should be disqualified from being a member of parliament if he failed to ensure the return of his brother Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan.
Last November, three-time former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, Nawaz Sharif flew to the UK in an air ambulance for medical treatment, a month after he was released on bail from a seven-year prison sentence in a case involving corrupt practices linked to his family’s purchase of upscale London flats.
The Islamabad High Court had given him until September 10 to return to Pakistan.
“The court should ask Shehbaz Sharif to bring his brother back,” Hussain told Arab News in an interview. “If he fails to do that, he should be disqualified from his [National Assembly] membership.”
The country’s superior judiciary had allowed the former prime minister to travel abroad on medical grounds after Shehbaz became his guarantor, Hussain said.
“This should be followed by an order to the Pakistani government to send an extradition request to the government of United Kingdom since court orders are more quickly enforced than administrative requests in countries like Britain,” the minister said. “We hope that the judiciary will proceed in that direction.”
Asked about Pakistan’s relations with Gulf countries, Hussain said his ministry was working on enhancing cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in precision agriculture and livestock.
“I have met the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia and the UAE this week,” he said. “We discussed cooperation in precision agriculture and livestock along with other areas of bilateral cooperation in the field of science and technology.”
#WATCH: #Pakistan is planning to export vegetables & nontraditional agriculture products and livestock to Arab world, @fawadchaudhry told #ArabNewsPK
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Read special by @iSaimaShabbir: https://t.co/Dq10A5FeOy#SaudiaArabia #UAE #Bahrain @uaeembassyisb @KSAembassyPK @MinistryofST pic.twitter.com/s9qmcvHOlv— Arab News Pakistan (@arabnewspk) September 12, 2020
He said the ministry of science was trying to establish a mechanism to bring vegetable farming under a strict certification regime.
“We are focusing on two areas while thinking about our exports to the Arab world,” Hussain said. “The first one includes vegetables and nontraditional agriculture products like ginger, black pepper and avocados. The second has livestock since Pakistan is geographically located quite close to the Gulf countries and can export meat quicker than Brazil and Australia who are the top meat providers to that region.”
The minister said he had shared details with Pakistani diplomatic missions in Gulf states, asking them to set meetings with food security or trade ministers.
“Our relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE is of immense importance to us, and we would like to work together to strengthen it further,” he added.
Hussain said he had invited Saudi companies to partner with Pakistan in hydroponic and greenhouse agriculture: “Because of the coronavirus pandemic, things are very slow but we are going to gain pace soon,” he said, adding that he planned to arrange business to business (B2B) meetings with Saudi companies in the coming months.
On the recent decision of the cabinet to allow the production of hemp (a variety of cannabis) in Pakistan, Hussain said research had proved that hemp had huge benefits for both medicinal and industrial purposes.
“Hemp has medicinal use, especially in chronic pains in serious diseases like cancer and epilepsy. Likewise, the stem of hemp is used in the textile industry,” the minister said. “It is used as a cotton replacement because the clothes people make from hemp are of far superior quality than traditional cotton.”
“In countries like Pakistan, where cotton growth is actually going down, hemp can actually play a very big role in the textile sector and enhance exports,” Hussain added.
On the electric buses in Pakistan, Chaudhry said that Islamabad was going to be the first Pakistani city to convert its public transport to electric vehicles.
#WATCH: #Pakistan will soon have more #electric vehicles on roads & in next 3-5 yrs, it will grow big enough to threaten jobs of combustion engine mechanics, @fawadchaudhry told #ArabNewsPK || @MinistryofST #EcoFriendly
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Read special by @iSaimaShabbir: https://t.co/Dq10A5FeOy pic.twitter.com/QJY4vnnHEz— Arab News Pakistan (@arabnewspk) September 12, 2020
“For electric buses, we are signing a memorandum of understanding with the Capital Development Authority next week,” he added.
The minister said the government was also initiating a program in the National Institute of Electronics to train local mechanics and help them understand how they can fix electric vehicles.
“We want to train them since the number of electric vehicles will be quite substantial in the next two to three years,” Hussain said. “These mechanics should understand the new technology so they do not go out of business.”
