JEDDAH/RIYADH: Fahmida Mirza, speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, arrived in Jeddah yesterday with her family to perform Umrah. She is accompanied by her husband Zulfiqar Mirza, a member of the Sindh Provincial Assembly and provincial home minister, and their children.
Pakistani Consul General Zaigham Uddin Azam, Riyaz Bukhari, a community leader, and officials of the Pakistani Consulate received her at the airport.
Fahmida, a senior Pakistani politician and parliamentarian, has been elected as the first woman speaker of the National Assembly. She has been elected to the Pakistani Parliament for three consecutive terms in 1997, 2002 and 2008 as member of the National Assembly from Badin in Sindh.
Meanwhile, Choudhry Javed Iqbal Waraich, adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani on religious affairs, Haj and Auqaf, told a community gathering in Riyadh that Pakistan should be on road to peace, progress, prosperity and witness an end to poverty if the prime minister is allowed to complete his term of office in the government.
He was speaking at a reception held in his honor by Pakistan People’s Party-Saudi Arabia and hosted by Asghar Qureshi, its chief coordinator. Waraich, whose rank is equivalent to a federal minister, is on an official visit to the Kingdom to oversee the preparatory work of Pakistan’s Haj mission.
Waraich appealed to all to have faith in the government, which is “very well alive to and aware of the problems facing the country.”
