KARACHI: Ibad ponders legal action over British paper’s report
KARACHI, June 12: Rejecting a report published in a British newspaper alleging that Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad collected cash and other benefits from Britain’s Social Security System for 10 months after taking over the top post in the province, a spokesman for the Governor’s House said that Dr Ibad fully believed in the law and rules and he has never committed any violation.
The spokesman said that an action would be taken according to the law after reviewing the report.
In a dispatch from Karachi, The Sunday Telegraph had said that Dr Ibad continued to receive £1,000 a month in income support, from the time he was appointed governor in December 2002 until October the following year.
In addition, it said, he received taxpayers’ money to cover the £1,057 monthly rent on his semi-detached home.
His wife, meanwhile, got benefits for having been diagnosed with a stress disorder, enabling Dr Ibad to claim payments as her care-giver, the report said.
Dr Ibad had come to Britain in 1992 as an asylum seeker, the paper said. Seven years later he was awarded refugee status, enabling him to get a range of socials security benefits.
Contacted by the paper, Dr Ibad said he had repaid “a few hundred pounds” and that he was keen for any outstanding money to be reimbursed.
“If anything has been done, even inadvertently, I would very much like to rectify it,” he was quoted as saying.
Andrew Dinson, a member of parliament for Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour Party, whose Hendon constituency includes Dr Ibad’s house in London, called for an immediate inquiry.—Agencies
