Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday, calling the $9.7 billion pledges by the international community at the Geneva conference a “vote of confidence” on the Pakistani nation, assured that the funds would be spent transparently and audited through the third party.
“This is the manifestation of trust and dignity to the government and people of Pakistan by the world nations. They would not have pledged around $10 billion of their taxpayers’ money if they had any apprehensions of any embezzlement in funds as was being propagated by our political adversaries,” the prime minister told a news conference after he returned from Geneva where he co-hosted International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan with United Nations Secretry-General Antonio Guterres.
Giving a breakup of the pledged money, the prime minister said the Islamic Development Bank made the biggest pledge of $4.2 billion followed by $2 billion by World Bank, $1 billion each by Saudi Arabia and AIIB, $500 million by Asian Development Bank, $100 million each by China and USA, Euro 380 million by France, Euro 84 million by Germany and $25 million by Qatar, besides others.
The prime minister congratulated the whole nation as well as the coalition government for the unexpected response by the international community as he said the pledges were far above their expectations.
He said following the pledges by the international community, it was the Government of Pakistan’s responsibility to ensure successful and transparent execution of the projects to meet the needs of flood survivors and the world’s expectations.
Appreciating the efforts by ministers for foreign affairs, climate change, finance, information and others, he said the federal secretaries had prepared an efficient roadmap for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the flood victims.
The prime minister said that despite the worst division created by the opposition in the society, the representatives of federal and provincial governments attended the conference and presented their case to the international community, which was also a display of nation’s trust in the coalition government.
