Audio tapes a mere drama: Mending corrupt system will take time, says PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday said people would soon see with their own eyes Pakistan becoming a great nation.

He criticised the former chief justice’s alleged audio and other leaked documents, saying that the audio tapes that are coming out in the name of judges are all a drama. He reiterated that Pakistan’s biggest problem was corruption and that a nation could not move forward, if its prime minister and ministers would indulge in corruption. “Nations remain poor not because of resources but due to corruption of their leaders,” he emphasised. He claimed that it would take time to mend the corrupt system. He was addressing a successful youth convention here.

“Nowadays, there is talk of tapes and I shall also speak on this. Tapes are coming out and judges’ names are surfacing. This is all drama, as when I joined politics 25 years back, I had said that Pakistan’s biggest problem is corruption,” he noted.

Referring to the recent function in Lahore, PM Imran said that the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) was invited to it as well as the SC judges and he felt sorry that there a person was invited to deliver a speech, who was convicted by the apex court and who had fled the country by telling a lie. “Nations can’t be finished by only stealing of wealth. Nations again rise and accumulate wealth but nations are destroyed where corruption is not considered an evil and when the moral values of a nation crumble,” he maintained.

The prime minister asked why a prime minister and ministers would shift their looted wealth abroad and then replied himself that because of they would keep in the country, it would be known to all and sundry.

While tracing reasons for surfacing of tapes, PM Imran said that Panama details came up in 2016 about those leaders who looted national wealth and then stashed it in offshore accounts and one the name was of Nawaz Sharif and four flats in the most expensive locality and Maryam Safdar was the owner of these flats. He continued then a case was filed and then JIT was formed and then again the matter went to the Supreme Court and a judgement was announced and Nawaz Sharif was awarded sentence, as he was asked to explain to the apex court or the nation how these flats were bought. “But instead of telling about how these flats were bought, first ‘mujhay qeun nikaala drive, then the judiciary and the army was criticised’.

PM Imran noted that first Nawaz lied in the National Assembly and the documents, he showed were fraud and then Qatari letter and then Calibri font and they also turned out to be fraud. He added till to date, they have failed to tell the nation, how these flats were bought and the reason was that they were purchased with looted money and all the institutions were being castigated instead of producing evidence of how the flats were bought.

The prime minister again narrated how a case was filed against him in the Supreme Court about his London flat and he provided every related documentary proof and even documents 40 years old. He added to have produced the receipts, which were demanded by the apex court.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said that when he entered politics, he was ridiculed for 14 years and it was said that there is a two party system and the third party could not come. He said everyone would say that it would be impossible for a third party and ever since PTI came to power, he was hearing that he would fail.

He attributed his success to hard work and said that there was no shortcut to success and the secret of success was to think big and that big thinking made a person big. He said that no one has succeeded without hard work, the secret of success is to think big, the bigger the dream, the bigger the person will be, Allah has made man powerful. “You will try, you will face challenges, you will become such a great person ultimately,” he noted.

The prime minister said that the one who is successful is not the one who is intelligent but the one who is successful is the one who has big thoughts, big dreams and does not give up after that. It happens in bad times, in difficult times, it is known how much character a person has.

The prime minister said that to alleviate the adverse effects of the pandemic, the government, through Kamyab Pakistan, will provide interest-free loans to four million deserving households for building their own homes and teach them skills.

He said that citizens of all the provinces and regions where the PTI is in power, including Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan, will get universal healthcare, starting from January in Punjab.