BADIN: Former speaker of the National Assembly Dr Fahmida Mirza on Tuesday reacted angrily to the allegations against her family levelled by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) information secretary Dr Nafisa Shah during a recent talk show aired by a TV channel.

In her statement issued to the press, Dr Mirza said Ms Shah must stop levelling baseless allegations against her family.

“I have never served in the national flag carrier, PIA; nor have I ever taken a personal loan [from any financial institution],” she categorically stated, arguing that the question of having defaulted on loans or getting a loan written off simply did not arise. “All such allegations levelled by the PPP leader are, therefore, baseless,” she said.

The former speaker clarified that the farmlands and sugar mills the [Mirza] family owned today had already been part of their assets before she entered politics.

In her rebuttal to Ms Shah’s other allegations, Dr Mirza, an estranged PPP leader, reminded her that the water supply schemes in eight towns of Badin district had been initiated during her tenure as the NA speaker.

“After [her spouse] Dr Zulfikar’s differences with the PPP and in the days when I had been suffering from cancer, [government] funds were transferred and these schemes were left to remain incomplete,” she said, and criticised the Sindh government for not completing them over the last five years although they were meant for Badin people and not her family.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2018