Tag: Govt

  • Pervaiz Elahi facing arrest for irregular hiring of 200 Punjab Assembly employees

    Pervaiz Elahi facing arrest for irregular hiring of 200 Punjab Assembly employees

    Former Punjab Chief Minister (CM) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is likely to be arrested for irregular recruitments in the Punjab Assembly without following rules and regulations.

    Reportedly, the anti-corruption department is keeping an eye on the case while the government has completed an inquiry against him.

    The former Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader is alleged to have recruited 200 people in the assembly when he was the speaker of the House and when he became CM.

    On January 12, Elahi, as CM Punjab, signed a summary for the dissolution of the provincial assembly on the directives of PTI Chairman Imran Khan. Later, he and his son Moonis Elahi joined Khan’s party following a fallout with his cousin and PML-Q Chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

  • PM Shehbaz orders two free flour bags instead of one for citizens

    PM Shehbaz orders two free flour bags instead of one for citizens

    Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif paid a visit to a flour distribution centre in Islamabad on Friday to oversee the work.

    During the visit, the premier directed authorities to give priority to the distribution of flour bags to aged persons and women.

    He also decided to provide two flour bags instead of one so that the people do not need to visit the distribution centres frequently.

    He asked relevant authorities to chalk out a facilitatory mechanism for the person who can only present the photocopy of CNIC in case the original card is missing.

    Under the Ramzan package jointly initiated by the prime minister and the Punjab government, 20 million bags of free flour have been distributed among deserving citizens by the 10th day of the programme.

  • ‘Ya Imran ya hum’; Rana Sanaullah thinks Khan’s removal from politics is only solution to current crisis

    Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, in an interview with PNN News, turned his guns toward Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and blamed him for all the chaos and polarisation in the country.

    The minister was of the view that till the time Khan is in politics, there will never be peace in the country.

    He pointed out that Khan’s supporters considered the government their enemy and there is no solution to this problem.

    “Ya woh siyasat se manfi ho jaye gaye, ya hum, “(Either he will be subtracted from politics or us).

    Sanaullah also warned the PTI chief that “if they push them back, they would be forced to retaliate and will not care about anything.”

    Pakistan is in a deep constitutional and political crisis as the ruling coalition and PTI fight it out. Despite the government’s efforts in the past to talk to PTI, the former ruling party ruled out any possibility.

    However recently, Khan has agreed to sit with rival political parties for “greater national consensus” on elections.

    But no efforts from both side have been made so far.

  • PTI spent more than Rs100 million on social media influencers monthly, says KP minister

    Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Caretaker Minister for Information, Barrister Feroze Jamal Shah, has claimed that when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was in power in the province, they spent Rs150-160 million rupees on social media influencers “to create and run trends in favour of PTI”.

    Talking to a private channel, he said that a total of 5000 social influencers were recruited by the provincial government in its last days and they were being paid between Rs25,000 to 30,000 per month.

    He said that the recruitments were illegal as they were not done according to the procedure, nor was any advertisement issued for the posts.

    He said that there was no area in the province where these influencers were not working.

    The minister stated that an investigation will take place as the government has sent the case of these 5,000 recruits to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

  • Arrest warrant issued for Rana Sanaullah for threatening govt officials

    Arrest warrant issued for Rana Sanaullah for threatening govt officials

    An arrest warrant for Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has been issued by Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Gujranwala today (Friday) for allegedly threatening judiciary and government officials in his public speeches.

    The court also directed the police to present the minister on March 7 and issued a show-cause notice to the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and the Superintendent of Police (SP), ordering them to appear before it on the same day.

    A terrorism case was registered against Sanaullah in August last year on the complaint of a citizen, Sheikh Shekaz Aslam. The first information report (FIR) stated that during his speeches on April 15, 2021, and January 29, 2022, the interior minister had threatened to stop the judiciary from doing its job and kill the children of the Punjab police officials.

    According to the first information report (FIR), the complainant saw the federal minister’s threatening remarks on Geo News‘ programme ‘Naya Pakistan’.

    The FIR states: “The purpose of Sanaullah’s statements was to terrorise the judiciary, chief secretary, commissioner and people of the country,” adding that “his aim was to stop the officials from working and prevent them from fulfilling their lawful responsibilities.”

    Moreover, he demanded an investigation against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader.

  • PML-N’s Attaullah Tarar raises questions over judge in Elahi’s alleged audio leak

    PML-N’s Attaullah Tarar raises questions over judge in Elahi’s alleged audio leak

    Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Interior Attaullah Tarar has raised questions over the alleged audio leak of former Chief Minister (CM) Punjab Pervaiz Elahi and lashed out at Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Ghulam Mahmood Dogar.

    Tarar started off by saying that CCPO Dogar as Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Operation was found guilty of land grabbing when Shehbaz Sharif was CM of Punjab. He said that at the time, Shehbaz removed him from his position and it was mentioned in the inquiry report that Dogar should never be appointed to a high-rank position in the future.

    Switching to Elahi’s alleged audio leak, the special assistant demanded action and asked why there is no inquiry against the judge.

    The audio conversations came to the surface on Thursday, released on the internet in three parts. In the first and second audio clips, a man believed to be Elahi can be heard saying that a specific judge of the Supreme Court should be appointed to hear the case of Elahi’s close aide, Muhammad Khan Bhatti. In the third clip, he can allegedly be heard talking to the same judge.

    On Friday the Supreme Court suspended the transfer order of Dogar as CCPO and forwarded the matter to another bench of the apex court

  • Govt to disclose Toshkhana gifts publicly

    Govt to disclose Toshkhana gifts publicly

    The federal government has decided to publicly disclose the details and records of gifts received and deposited in the Toshakhana over the past two decades.

    The decision was taken in a cabinet meeting after the government faced backlash for it’s reluctance to disclose the list of gifts.

    The Toshakhana was established in 1978. All public officeholders, including parliamentarians and bureaucrats, are bound to report the gifts they have received from foreign dignitaries to the Cabinet Division, whereafter they are to be deposited at the Toshakhana.

    Earlier, the incumbent government told Lahore High Court (LHC) that public disclosure of Toshakhana details could cause unnecessary media hype and could be potentially damaging to Pakistan’s foreign relations.

    Former Prime Minister (PM) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has been accused of not sharing details of the state gifts which he received during his tenure as the head of government.

    Last year, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) also disqualified the PTI chief as Member of the National Assembly (MNA) in the Toshkhana case.

  • PM Shehbaz regrets ‘inconvenience’ to Pakistanis from major power outage

    Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif has addressed Monday’s major power breakdown that left most of the country without electricity for more than 12 hours.

    In a tweet, the Premier expressed his “sincere regrets”. He wrote, “On behalf of my government, I would like to express my sincere regrets for the inconvenience our citizens suffered due to the power outage yesterday.”

    He added that an inquiry is going on to determine what led to the sudden blackout.

    A day after the power outage, Minister for Energy Khurram Dastgir said that electricity has been fully restored at grid stations across the country. However, the minister pointed out that there will be a shortage of electricity for the next two days.

    Residents complained of increased load-shedding even after the restoration, laying doubt on the government’s claims that power was fully restored.

    In a televised address on Tuesday, the minister explained said that there was a “delay in synchronisation” between Tarbela and Mangla power plants.

  • Rs19bn of Benazir Income support programme allegedly distributed among Govt officials: report

    The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was informed by the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) on Thursday that 143,000 government officials had received an illegal distribution of Rs19 billion from the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), Dawn has reported.

    Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, a member of the PAC, asked BISP secretary Yousuf Khan about the status of the investigation into the distribution of monies among government officials in 2020 during the examination of the audit report of the Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division.

    The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was asked to look into the issue of the distribution of BISP payments to underserving beneficiaries when it first came to light in 2020.

    In answer to Senator Syed’s inquiry, BISP secretary Yousuf Khan informed the committee that 2,500 of the 143,000 ineligible beneficiaries who were employed by the government were doing so at the BS-17 level or higher.

    He claimed that these officials had been using their own names to withdraw money from the BISP which was intended for those in need.
    The BISP secretary stated he was unsure of the precise amount paid to these unlawful beneficiaries when asked about it by PAC chairman Noor Alam Khan.
    The committee was informed by the audit officials that Rs19 billion had been given to those who weren’t deserving.

  • Govt announces shut down of markets, restaurants at 8pm to save energy

    Govt announces shut down of markets, restaurants at 8pm to save energy

    The federal government on Tuesday announced a plan to save energy. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that all the markets and restaurants across the country will be shut down at 8pm. 

    Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and Advisor to the Prime Minister on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan Qamar Zaman Kaira were also present at the media briefing.

    “If 20% of the workers are sent for work from home on a rotational basis, this will save Rs56 billion,” said the minister.

    Pharmacies have been exempted from these restrictions.

    “The government is also introducing e-bikes, which will phase out the bikes that use petrol. The government is negotiating with companies to phase out the bikes that use petrol and modify the existing bikes,” said Asif.

    A definitive strategy on that, however, is anticipated to be announced on Thursday when the federal government finalises its consultations with all provincial governments.

    “Pakistan’s cabinet decides to take energy conservation measures that will save billions of rupees and burn less fossil fuels. Energy is a huge carbon emitter. Committee will take pathways to the provinces and report back in two days,” tweeted Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman.