ISLAMABAD: Hitting out at his opponents for repeatedly calling him a ‘selected prime minister’, Imran Khan on Saturday held the Sharif and Zardari families responsible for the recent devaluation of the Pakistani rupee against the US dollar and announced that a “crackdown” against money launderers would soon be launched.

“Those who have been manufactured in a military nursery are talking about selected PM,” Mr Khan said while addressing the opposition-less National Assembly on the concluding day of the three-week-long budget session. The lower house had witnessed a ruckus two days ago when Mr Sharif had called the prime minister “selected” in his presence.

Finding the atmosphere conducive for his speech, the prime minister appeared in the assembly hall on Saturday at a time when the speaker was about to prorogue the session after passing supplementary grants for the previous years and when Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and chief whip of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Amir Dogar had already expressed their gratitude to the treasury members and their allies for their support in the passage of the federal budget 2019-20.

Earlier, opposition members pointed out lack of quorum twice but failed to disrupt the proceedings. Finally, they staged a walkout when PTI’s Munazza Hassan, who was presiding over the session in the absence of both the speaker and the deputy speaker, issued a ruling directing the opposition parties to ensure the presence of former president Asif Zardari and PML-N’s Khawaja Saad Rafique in the house. She said their production orders had been issued for their participation in the assembly proceedings.

Imran assails opponents for calling him ‘selected PM’; opposition stages walkout as NA votes on supplementary budget

The treasury members passed a resolution against Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for his remarks against Speaker Asad Qaiser during a news conference on Friday evening.

Through the resolution, read out by Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari, the house “strongly condemned the inciting language” used by the PPP chairman against the speaker and termed the “personalised attack” on him as an attack on the whole parliament which was “unacceptable”. The resolution also asked the PPP chairman to seek an apology from the house over his uncalled-for remarks.

Talking to reporters outside the parliament house after the passage of the budget, the PPP chairman had accused the NA speaker of flouting rules and termed his behaviour “obnoxious and illegal”. Mr Bhutto-Zardari had called him “worse than the speakers in the eras of General Ziaul Haq and General Musharraf”.

PM’s speech

Lashing out at the opposition parties, Mr Khan said the details of money laundering committed by the Zardari and Sharif families were unfolding before them.

Referring to the criticism by PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif against the unprecedented devaluation of the Pakistani rupee, the PM said that those who had left behind a record deficit of $19.5 billion were blaming the PTI government for the rupee devaluation.

“How can those facing serious charges of money laundering address the Parliament?” Mr Khan asked.

The PM said the man facing charges of corruption worth billions over the past 30 years was made head of the Public Accounts Committee, which was supposed to protect public interests.

Dubbing money laundering as the “biggest curse” for Pakistan, Mr Khan said the resident Pakistanis had stashed around $10 billion abroad.

He said former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in her autobiography had alleged that the PPP leadership had sought US help in getting their corruption cases closed. In her book, she had revealed the American role in getting the NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) signed by Gen Musharraf and the PPP leaders, Mr Khan said with FM Qureshi, who was an active PPP member then, looking on while sitting next to him.

Mr Khan said the government would soon launch a full-fledged crackdown against money laundering to plug loopholes in the system left by the previous governments.

“We are making all-out efforts to ensure that the burden of this difficult time is borne by those who can afford it,” the premier told the lower house of parliament.

PM Khan especially thanked the Pakistan Army for freezing the institution’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year in view of the economic hardships. “[Army Chief] Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa especially told me that the [army] desires that the money saved should be spent on Balochistan and Fata,” he announced while looking at the three members of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) sitting on the back benches with their chief Akhtar Mengal.

The prime minister then ridiculed the opposition parties over their claims that they would bring the government down by not letting it pass the budget.

He also thanked lawmakers belonging to his party and allies including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the PML-Q for their support.

Supplementary budget

Earlier, the National Assembly voted on supplementary grants of the previous years.

Members of major opposition parties, including the PPP and PML-N, objected to increased expenditures of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the past year.

Former premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the ECP was provided additional amount of Rs20 billion despite the complaints that it had “failed to hold transparent elections. “Last year’s elections were controversial. The people and international institutions have not recognised them. It is unfortunate that we are unable to hold transparent elections,” he remarked.

He also questioned the decision to deploy troops inside polling stations during the upcoming elections in the tribal districts.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2019