The coalition partners have decided that the present government will go ahead with the completion of its term instead of early elections in the country, reports Geo News.
The decision comes after a meeting of the heads of the ruling alliance today (Monday). The allied parties’ heads met to discuss the political situation in the country after the announcement of a long march towards Islamabad by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on May 25.
As per the news outlet, the government has also decided to take tough decisions in a bid to steer the country out of an economic crisis. As Finance Minister Miftah Ismail has left for Doha, Qatar, for talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the tough measures will reportedly be taken in a couple of days.
The Shehbaz Sharif government has stated that it needs support from “all sides” to take tough decisions in order to revive the economy.
Finance Minister Miftah Ismail has once again said the government doesn’t plan to increase the prices of petroleum products. Talking to the media at the Karachi airport, he said that Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif had ruled out the possibility of ending the subsidies.
“It will not happen. I have refused. Shehbaz Sharif sahib has refused. Nawaz Sharif sahib has refused,” said Ismail. “I am assuring you that I will not agree to [the terms] that Shaukat Tarin agreed to.”
He said that according to the deal finalised by former finance minister Shaukat Tarin, Pakistan would have to raise the price of diesel by over Rs150 and petrol by Rs100.
Miftah said that Imran Khan took a loan of Rs20,000 billion, which is 80% of the entire amount of loans taken in 71 years of Pakistan’s history.
He further stated that former planning and development minister Asad Umar caused Pakistan a loss of 9.1%, which was a record loss in 52 years.
“Pakistan exported wheat when we [PML-N] left the government but today the country is importing wheat,” Miftah said.
A team comprising State Bank of Pakistan and Federal Board of Revenue officials, as well as Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Dr Aisha Ghous Pasha and the finance secretary, are already in Doha to negotiate with the IMF.
The talks began on May 18. At the time, Ismail had told the IMF that the government understood the current economic crisis and agreed that it would have to take “tough decisions” while mitigating the effects of inflation on middle to low-income groups.
Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif and his son Chief Minister (CM) Punjab Hamza Shehbaz appeared in a special court (Central-I) for their hearing in the Rs16 billion money-laundering case today.
The father-son duo was accompanied by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.
Shehbaz and Hamza were set to be indicted in the case in the previous hearing on May 14 but it was delayed because the prime minister was in the UK and postponed his return to the country in order to visit the UAE to offer condolences over the death of their president.
Once the hearing started, Judge Ijaz Hassan Awan complained that due to the security of the prime minister, others coming to the court had to suffer.
Replying to his complaint, PM Shehbaz mentioned that he has asked his security not to stop anybody. “I am appearing before the court in order to maintain its dignity and follow the laws of the country,” the premier added.
When the court asked PM Shehbaz to take the rostrum, the premier said he would have committed a crime if he hadn’t appeared in the court.
“On the orders of former prime minister Imran Khan, an investigation was conducted in Britain and I was proved innocent,” PM Shehbaz recalled, adding that he returned to Pakistan back in 2004 and wouldn’t have come back if he had black money.
When Shehbaz again took the stand, he told the court he had served as the chief minister for 10 years but had never taken a salary. “My salary would be Rs10 million but I did not take it. I also went on official tours using my own money. I used to get the government car refuelled from my own pocket.”
“I saved the nation billions of rupees.”
The premier’s counsel argued that the 14 accounts mentioned by the FIA were through banking channels. “Baseless propaganda was done in this case for 1.5 years. The suspects tolerated insults despite lack of evidence.”
“It seems the FIA is inspired by [streaming platform] Netflix. This is a film-inspired FIR,” he argued.
The FIA had in December 2021 submitted the challan against Shehbaz and Hamza to a special court for their alleged involvement in laundering an amount of Rs16bn in the sugar scam case.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Friday referred to Maryam Nawaz’s Sargodha rally and said: “Someone had sent me the speech delivered by Maryam Nawaz in Sargodha yesterday.”
“In that speech, she uttered my name with such passion that I would like to tell her: Maryam, please be careful, your husband may get upset because you were constantly repeating my name again and again with such emotion.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the entire nation, especially women, should strongly condemn the “deplorable language used against the daughter of the nation Maryam Nawaz”.
بیٹی مریم نواز شریف کے خلاف قابل افسوس زبان درازی پر پوری قوم خاص طور پر خواتین پرزور مذمت کریں۔ کم ظرفی کے اظہار سے ملک وقوم کے خلاف آپ کے جرائم چھپ نہیں سکتے۔ مسجد نبوی کی حرمت و ناموس کا پاس نہ کرنے والوں سے ماؤں، بہنوں، بیٹیوں کی عزت وتکریم کی کیا توقع ہوسکتی ہے۔
“Your crimes against the country and the nation cannot be hidden. How could those — who cannot respect the sanctity of Masjid Nabawi (PBUH) — be expected to respect the honour of someone’s mothers, sisters, and daughters?”
He continued: “Imran is the first person in history to fall into this abyss of rudeness as the leader of a party. His party went out to make a nation but spoiled the morals of the people instead. To Allah, we belong and to Him, we shall return.”
PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif responded to Khan’s controversial comments about his daughter and said, “He does not know how to respect women. He uses derogatory language, which has not even been witnessed in the worst society. He does know not how to respect women, and he talks about Riyaasat-e-Madinah.”
Former president Asif Ali Zardari said that he condemned the derogatory language used by the PTI chairman.
“Those who have mothers and sisters in their homes do not use such language against other women,” the PPP co-chairman said. “Please, do not stoop so low in the name of politics.”
He added that every person’s mother, sister, and daughter was worthy of respect and that was the message of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto to the nation.
“I wish someone would also write a letter to the chief justice of Pakistan based on personal observation and he would take notice of the matter,” he said.
PML-N on its official Twitter account, right after the Multan rally, shared a photo of Imran Khan’s sons and Tyrian White with the message saying how could a man who has not “owned up to his own daughter” respect the daughters of others.
Screenshot of a tweet of PML-N
However, the tweet has now been deleted once people started condemning it.
According to the provincial health department, the first case of cholera was identified in Balochistan on April 17th and since then 2,856 cases and six deaths have been reported so far in the province.
A report, released by Geo News‘ Muhummad Ejaz Khan on the current crisis faced by Balochistan suggests that due to infection of cholera in the region, local health sources are rubbishing the official tally. They claim that at least two dozen people are dead due to the disease.
Senator Sarfraz Bugti shared a video of locals in which they can be seen protesting in the scorching heat. In the tweet, he urged the concerned authorities to take action.
20 died including children due to the cholera epidemic spiralling out of control in Pir Koh, #DeraBugti CM @AQuddusBizenjo is urgently requested to take stock of the situation and immediately lend assistance to the afflicted. People are suffering and protesting but no one cares! pic.twitter.com/YKX7gg7Gxj
It has been reported by the media outlet that residents of Dera Bugti (a district in Balochistan) are being forced to drink dirty water because of the unavailability of clean water. Last week, in the district six people, including women and very young children, died within hours of being infected with cholera.
Dr Muhammad Azam Bugti, the district health officer in Dera Bugti, revealed to the media outlet that local people and animals use the same water ponds for drinking, which has become a major cause of the epidemic.
“Over 85% of Balochistan’s population is deprived of clean drinking water,” he said. “This at a time when billions of rupees are being allocated every year for water supply schemes in the province”, he added.
Chief Minister (CM) Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo has directed the department of public health and Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif has also ordered emergency relief measures.
Several demonstrations this month were also held in Quetta and other areas of Dera Bugti to demand that the government provide clean drinking water. According to Geo, in the long run, the provincial government will need to set up a research cell to study the epidemic which has now firmly rooted itself in the province.
Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said that Pakistan is likely to receive an investment worth $1 billion from Saudi Arabia.
During his speech, the PM asked businessmen to speak about their problems and said: “We need to analyse the economic situation with patience.”
The premier then requested the business community to provide solutions as the local currency has lately been fluctuating significantly against the United States (US) dollar. “I am not here for political point-scoring,” PM Shehbaz clarified.
“When I took the oath on April 11, the rate of United States (US) dollar against the Pakistani currently was 189,” said Shehbaz.
“The Rs. 60-65 increase in the rupee value against the greenback wasn’t the coalition government’s fault,” Shehbaz said, adding that when the former government speculated that they would be ousted, they reduced the petroleum prices despite a price hike in the international market, thus going against the conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“During the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) tenure loans worth Rs22,000 billion were taken which shows an 80 per cent increase from 2018,” he said, adding that “powerful echelons” in the country supported their “favourite” person.
Shedding light on his decision regarding the ban imposed on the import of luxury and non-essential items, PM Shehbaz said that while he banned the import of certain items for some time, he did not increase the duties because the “elite class would have still purchased imported items after paying duties.”
The premier said: “Pakistan cannot afford to purchase gas worth $20 billion; we have to slowly and gradually move towards solar and wind energy.”
“If green energy comes to Pakistan, we will save Pakistan’s funds,” said PM Shehbaz.
The premier arrived in Karachi earlier today on a day-long visit.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) is barring authorities from making new appointments and transferring officials involved in “high-profile” and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) cases as well as those cases which are being heard by special courts, reports Dawn.
The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) observed that special courts in Karachi and Lahore lack judges while three accountability courts in Islamabad are also empty.
The court issued notices to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman and the interior secretary. The court asked the parties concerned to give an explanation as to why there was “interference” in criminal cases, and stopped the NAB and FIA from withdrawing cases till further orders.
The court also asked to be informed about the steps being taken to protect the record of criminal cases and directed for the record of high-profile cases to be checked and sealed. When Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Ashtar Ausaf protested against this, the CJP said that the record of ongoing cases would not be sealed, only that of the prosecution.
During the hearing, the CJP also observed that there should be “no interference in the prosecution process or the prosecution wing”.
The CJP also noticed that FIA’s former director Mohammad Rizwan, who was probing money laundering charges against Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif and his son Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Hamza Shahbaz, was also transferred and later died of a heart attack.
“We are concerned over these developments,” the CJP said. Justice Bandial, indirectly pointing out at Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) also stated that according to news reports, “thousands” of people had benefitted after their names were removed from the no-fly list.
At one point, CJP Bandial remarked that the court was only concerned with ensuring justice and adjourned the hearing till May 27.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Wednesday in his jalsa in Gujranwala criticised Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz.
Khan said, “Once a woman from the American Embassy came to [Pakistan], Maryam called her at her house, opened the door of her car, and brought her inside. The way she was walking besides the American lady, the only thing left was for Maryam to lie down and tell the lady to pass over her so that her shoes don’t get dirty.”
ایک مرتبہ امریکی ایمبیسی سے خاتون آئی مریم نواز نے اسے اپنے گھر بلایا ، اس کی گاڑی کا دروازہ کھولا ، صرف ایک ہی کسر باقی رہ گئی تھی کہ مریم لیٹ جاتیں اور ان خاتون سے کہتی کہ میرے اوپر سے گزر کر جائیں تاکہ آپ کے جوتے گندے نہ ہوجائیں، عمران خان#GeoNewspic.twitter.com/hRmjzPu20x
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) May 18, 2022
Khan was talking about United States (US) Charge d’ Affaires Angela Aggeler, who visited Jati Umrah on October 14, 2021. On her arrival, she was received by Maryam Nawaz.
The PTI chairman hit at Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif as well and said, “Shehbaz Sharif you have worked really hard. You have polished many boots. Whoever came from the American Embassy you used to polish their boots.”
Berating the Sharif brothers, Khan said: “Shehbaz Sharif is asking what to do after becoming the prime minister. He said that inflation is rising and foreign exchange is tumbling. The two brothers (Shehbaz and Nawaz Sharif) are now trapped and they are wondering what to do.”
The decision was reached during a meeting of the coalition partners, where the country’s overall political situation was discussed with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
As per media reports, the meeting expressed its readiness to take the unprecedented economic crisis head-on and not give up till the country saw economic stability.
The participants of the meeting decided that the government would complete its constitutional tenure in a bid to take the country out of the current economic turmoil.
During the cabinet meeting, it was pointed out that “NAB’s black law” was used only for political revenge, and harassment of government officials and the business community.
A cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif approved the formation of a committee headed by the Law Minister to amend the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) law.
During the meeting, it was pointed out that “NAB’s black law” was used only for political revenge, harassment of government officials and the business community.
The committee will also include personalities from the legal fraternity, banking sector, bureaucracy and other fields.
Other than this, PM informed the cabinet that the country is facing a severe heatwave for which a special task force has been formed under the Ministry of Climate Change.
This task force will also take steps to address climate change so that the threats to Pakistan can be addressed in a timely manner.
Moreover, Rs 52 billion has been reserved for the Petroleum Division.
