Imran Khan threatening ECP instead of giving account of corruption: Marriyum Aurangzeb

ISLAMABAD: Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb on Tuesday said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan is threatening the Election Commission of Pakistan instead of giving the account of his corruption in the foreign funding case.

“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is visiting Saudi Arabia at his own expense while all other people accompanying him are also going at their own expense,” she told a news conference here. 

Referring to PTI demonstrations outside the ECP offices, she pointed out that the PTI is protesting against the hearing of the foreign funding case by the commission. She recalled how the PTI had bullied the-then PMLN government, inflicting violence on police personnel during a sit-in, declaring civil disobedience and attacking the PTV and parliament. The PTI chairman, she noted, was expected to give an account of foreign funding to the ECP. She hoped that the PTI will answer the question raised by the commission regarding donations from abroad, as the case has been pending with the electoral body for eight years now.

Marriyum emphasized that today instead of giving an account of their corruption, they are threatening the commission to hold elections. “Let me make it clear that the elections will be held on time, when the ECP will be ready for this and when people will want them to happen,” she contended.

Addressing the PTI, she asserted: “Your ego, your anarchy, your bullying, intimidation and abuse will not hold elections in Pakistan. The elections are to be conducted by the ECP.” She said Imran is repeatedly demanding that the chief election commissioner resign. “Why should he resign because he is demanding the account of your corruption?” She said the PTI is standing in the dock today and has to give an account of its corruption. “We had said that the time will come when people will hold you accountable and that time has come while today inflation in the country is at the rate of 16pc, it is because of Imran Khan. Petrol is getting expensive, it is also because of Imran Khan,” she said.

About the power outages, she said that in the past, inflation was caused on IMF orders. The country is mired in historical debts. The dollar has gone from Rs115 to Rs190. Strict IMF conditions and loadshedding in the country are due to Imran Khan’s incompetence. Owing to Imran Khan's incompetence, she alleged, people are suffering from loadshedding. Power plants are shut down due to lack of repairs. Oil, gas and LNG were not procured on time. She said that in 2018, during the PMLN government, there was zero loadshedding in the country and today they “ask what we did in two weeks”.

“Within two weeks, we have run 20 out of 27 closed power plants, today only seven plants are closed and very soon there will be zero loadshedding and there will be no leniency in this connection,” she said, adding that the incumbent government has made flour and sugar cheaper and a monitoring system has been set up to check prices in Ramazan bazaars. Marriyum charged that the PTI mafia robbed people for four years, destroyed the national economy, carried out economic terrorism in the country, plunged the country into debt and made 20 million people unemployed. She said that today he (Imran) is waving a piece of paper and showing it to people, but people have not forgotten his incompetence. Imran Khan had taken the people of Pakistan, media, parliament and opposition hostage.

Marriyum said his attitude was to abuse, threaten and attack anyone who asked him questions, but now it will not work, whereas today Imran Khan does not have the chair, the power that he used to carry out this bullying.

The minister contended that despite using all the best tactics, Imran could not silence the truth tellers. She paid tributes to those who faced “Imran Khan’s fascism and Niazi-NAB nexus”. She asserted that Imran Khan should answer the people of Pakistan today about unemployment, economic catastrophe, inflation and sale of Kashmir.

She said the PTI had attacked the Constitution, while the incumbent government is cleaning up the filth spread by Imran Khan. Some of his spokespersons have fled abroad and those who are left behind will also leave. “We will do our best to give relief to people and know that Imran Khan will do his best to make people suffer as he did while standing on the container at the beginning of the CPEC project. The speed with which Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his ministers are working, after some time, no one will remember the face of Imran Khan,” she noted.