Women are the reason for the improvement Pakistan has achieved so far, says Governor Muhammad Zubair. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR:
Leaders of an opposition party alliance – Tehreek Tahaffuz-e-Aaeen Pakistan (TTAP) – have lambasted the government for trying to hide a “damning report” from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and are asking why the PML-N-led administration has yet to respond to it.
The report, released this week, highlighted persistent corruption challenges in Pakistan driven by systemic weaknesses across state institutions and called for the immediate initiation of a 15-point reform agenda to improve transparency, fairness and integrity.
At a press conference in Islamabad on Saturday, Awaam Pakistan party leader Muhammad Zubair and PTI’s Taimur Saleem Jhagra questioned why the government released the report only after the IMF made its disclosure conditional on the release of the next tranche of its loan program.
Zubair said more than 48 hours had passed but no government official had denied the IMF report, which he said had sparked a storm. He said the incumbent government had come to power through a sham election, adding that media freedom had ended and the Election Commission of Pakistan was disbanded.
“The prime minister used to say that no one can show another case against the government. And now wheat and sugar scandals have surfaced. Irregularities worth Rs 5,300 billion have come to light. We had no idea how the country was looted.”
He said the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) had claimed two-and-a-half years ago that there would be one billion dollars in investment, but this claim too had proved false. Zubair asked what were the reasons why the government kept this report suppressed for three months.
“It was an IMF condition that the report must be made public before the next tranche can be released. We demand investigations into the irregularities mentioned in the report.
The former Sindh governor, who quit the PML-N a few months ago, said the cases against PTI founder Imran Khan were fabricated and baseless.
PTI leader Taimur Saleem Jhagra said that this report is not even being covered on TV, implying that the state now controlled the media completely.
He asked why the government delayed the publication of the report. “From the opposition platform, we demand an explanation for the delay in releasing this report,” he said.
He asked what the so-called hybrid system had done, adding that the government had not been able to privatize a single entity from the PTI era.
“I would urge all of you to read this report at least once. The report says that corruption is a permanent part of Pakistan’s system. It says that the cost of corruption is paid by the economy,” he added.
Separately, while addressing the media in Peshawar, PTI Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram said that the IMF report has exposed the actions of the government and the true status and credibility of the federal government in the eyes of the IMF has now become clear.
He argued that the international institution itself exposes the actions of the government.
The report, he said, highlighted corruption worth 5.3 trillion rupees, weaknesses in the judicial system, a backlog of hundreds of thousands of pending cases and clashes in institutional powers – according to him, clear evidence of government failure.
He also urged the Chief Justice of Pakistan to review the points raised in the IMF report.
Imprisonment of Imran Khan
Akram claimed that by imposing an illegal ban on meetings with PTI founder Imran Khan, the government is blatantly violating Articles 10 and 14 of the constitution and that he has been kept in solitary confinement, despite a long-standing law that every prisoner has the right to see visitors once a week.
