ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday said the menace of money laundering would have been eliminated from the country had former president Gen Pervez Musharraf not given NRO-like opportunity to the Sharif family.

“If Sharif family had not been given the NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) in Hudaibya Paper Mills case, Pakistan would have become a corruption-free country,” the prime minister said during a meeting with Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry.

According to the Prime Minister Office, the information minister called on the prime minister and discussed with the latter matters pertaining to the political situation in the country.

The prime minister said: “Unfortunately, the NRO [concessional deal] given in Hudaibya Papers Mills case was later used as a model [precedent] in other following corruption cases.”

Imran asks minister to inform people about corruption of former rulers

He said the model of corruption was used to send money abroad and that the money was again transferred back to the country through frontmen, adding that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari also used the same model to send billions of rupees to foreign countries.

PM Khan directed the information minister to disseminate details of corruption of former rulers so that their “real faces” could be exposed that how they had looted the national wealth, misled the people and put them under huge burden of debts and the unprecedented price hike.

He said the rules and regulations formulated by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government under the benami law would help overcome money laundering and discourage the practice of holding properties in others’ names.

The prime minister’s remarks came after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) tightened noose around top leaders of opposition parties — Sharif and Zardari families — for allegedly being involved in corruption and money laundering. Prime Minister Khan and some of his cabinet members have been claiming that the opposition leaders facing NAB cases have sought another NRO-like deal but the present government has made it clear that no such deal will be made with them.

However, it is believed that the PTI government has to make some “understanding” with opposition parties, especially the PPP and PML-N, to seek their cooperation in major issues such as curbing terrorism and running legislative business in parliament.

On the other hand, opposition alleges that the PTI government is using National Accountability Bureau (NAB) as a tool for political victimisation and arm-twisting of the opposition leaders. However, the government claims that NAB is an independent organisation and that it has nothing to do with the corruption cases filed against the PPP and PML-N leaders.

Citizen portal

The PM Office issued some details about complaints received through the Pakistan Citizen Portal and the rate of their redressal.

According to it, so far 875,111 people have lodged their complaints — 791,059 by people within the country and 80,753 by overseas Pakistanis. Of the total complaints, 449,025 have been addressed, with the highest number in Punjab (43.87 per cent).

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2019