ISLAMABAD, Aug 4: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has denounced the latest tirade of allegations against Benazir Bhutto, saying that it was a tactic adopted by the government to divert public attention from real issues.

In a statement on Friday, the party spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said regurgitation of old allegations against the PPP leadership by the information minister was a reaction to the recent exposure of scandals including that of Pakistan Steel Mill, the Stock Exchange crash, sugar price crisis and the oil price manipulation, to name only a few.

Ridiculing the advice that the PPP central executive council ask for the resignation of party chairperson Benazir Bhutto, Mr Babar said as a matter of fact the ruling coalition should demand both Gen Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to step down for presiding over a dispensation that was rotten to the core and stank with corruption.

The spokesman said the former SECP chairman testified before the parliament that brokers behind the crash were supported by the mandarins of the finance ministry causing a loss of Rs800 billion to common investor.

The Supreme Court observed that Rs33 billion were being paid to the buyers of Steel Mill to purchase it for only Rs22 billion. The cartel of oil marketing companies had made over Rs200 billion by artificially jacking up prices in connivance with state functionaries and the Public Accounts Committee itself admitted that the sugar mill mafia had made Rs40 billion at the expense of the poor.

This is record corruption by the ruling mafia before which the contemporary corruption even in some Latin American countries pales into insignificance.

In any age, in any clime and in any society a regime presiding over such astronomical corruption would be chased out of office, he said. He said the high court in the Isle of Man in a historic judgment on February 9 this year had rejected the charges of corruption pertaining to the Rockwood estate as unproven.

The proceedings in the Isle of Man High Court had made it clear that the regime had tried to unethically involve the liquidator, who instead of acting for the company was made to work in the interests of NAB, prompting the court to reject his petition that it could prove that assets acquired were through corrupt means.

In his judgment, the judge said he was unable to conclude that evidence existed whereby it was reasonable for the liquidator to accept that the monies used by Bomer Finance Inc and others to finance the purchase and refurbishment of the Rockwood Estate were a result of corruption whilst Asif Ali Zardari held government office in Pakistan.