No-one can ask questions now about unlawful use of KP helicopter from 2008.
Can be wrong, but no one can beat Nawaz Sharif ......
Sharif set for grilling on wealth
Pakistan's new regime says the deposed prime minister bought Park Lane apartments with stolen money
Pakistan coup: special report
Luke Harding and
Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
Sun 9 Apr 2000 20.52 EDT
Pakistan's jailed former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is to be interrogated this week over claims that he stole hundreds of millions of pounds during his time in power, depositing much of the money in offshore accounts based in Britain.
Sharif, who last week received two life sentences for hijacking and terrorism, will be asked how he was able to purchase four Park Lane apartments. Investigators have discovered that the Mayfair properties are registered to two offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands.
At the weekend officials accused Sharif of concealing ownership of the properties at the time of his 1997 election victory and formally registered a corruption case against him. He faces four other corruption charges, with at least seven more cases pending.
In a sign that General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military leader, has not finished with the man he toppled, Sharif is expected to appear in court again this month and faces the prospect of several lengthy corruption trials stretching over several years.
"Sharif was involved in evasion of taxes, money laundering, circumventing procedures and railroading legislation specifically to benefit family concerns," Farouk Adam Khan, the chief corruption prosecutor, said. "We would like to confront him with information we have collected."
Sharif's six co-defendants, who were last week acquitted in the hijacking case, have been arrested again. His brother Shahbaz, a former chief minister of Punjab, has been moved to the Attock Fort jail, pending a corruption trial. Mr Sharif is expected to appeal against his terrorism conviction today.
Investigators have been attempting to trace his assets since he was detained following the military coup in October. They claim that he siphoned off "hundreds of millions of pounds" from Pakistan throughout his politcal career, hiding the money in Jersey, Guernsey and Switzerland.
Sources at Pakistan's national accountability bureau say that Mr Sharif concealed ownership of his Park Lane apartments by registering them in the name of two British Virgin Island offshore companies.
The flats are managed by a firm of British solicitors. The companies have two Swiss bankers as nominees.
"We believe the money used to buy these apartments was stolen from the people of Pakistan," Mr Khan added.
Sharif, who is 50, allegedly bought the properties with money borrowed from state-run Pakistani banks, and failed to repay it. Although technically bankrupt, he is one of Pakistan's richest men. He owns an estate, several townhouses and a lucrative steel, sugar, textile and paper empire. All these are registered to his wife Kulsoom, daughter Mariam and other relatives. They deny impropriety.
"Having property is not illegal. The Sharif family is not at all corrupt and insh'allah (God willing) we will prove it one day," Mrs Sharif said recently. "The Park Lane flats were bought because the children were studying in London."
For the past six months investigators have been piecing together how Sharif's wealth increased by 800% since his appointment as Punjab chief minister in 1985, and between 1990-1993, when he first became prime minister.
He is accused of failing to pay tax on a Russian Mi-8 helicopter, not declaring income tax and defaulting on two loans worth £24m.
Under Pakistan's military rulers, corruption charges have been filed against 85 people, including politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and bankers, many associated with the Sharif regime. Others were officials who served under Benazir Bhutto, prime minister 1988-1990 and 1993-1996. She is now in exile in London, after fleeing Pakistan last year shortly before a court sentenced her to five years for corruption.
Sharif's younger brother Abbas and son Hussain have been in prison for several months. So far they have not been charged.
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League met last night in Islamabad to discuss the future. Sharif's family insist that he still runs the party from jail.
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Shehbaz Sharif can buy himself a helicopter, but it’s too costly to provide adequate medical facilities in Punjab?
Why would the Sharif brothers, who rush to London for medical check-ups, be concerned about the welfare of the people?
Ahsan ZafeerJuly 25, 2017
The aftermath of the Bahawalpur tragedy is a harrowing tale of gross incompetence and disregard for human life. Before this, little emphasis has been placed on how the massive loss of life could have been avoided.
For instance,
Army helicopters had to be called in for transporting the burn victims to the hospital since the rescue services didn’t own one. But here’s a little fact – just three months ago, a Rs2.25 billion Russian
helicopter was bought by Shehbaz Sharif for personal use. The question that should be asked here is, whether it was bought with public funds that could have been utilised elsewhere.
Numerous lives could have been saved and the death toll reduced if a
decent medical facility with a burn unit existed nearby. Despite the
urgent need for better medical facilities, the Sharifs have diverted a large chunk of funds, originally allocated for South Punjab, to
infrastructure projects in urban areas.
Thanks to this erroneous policy, the nearest
Victoria hospital only had 30 beds in its ICU section and seven of their machines were out of order. The injured had to be
airlifted to Multan as there was no burn unit present either.
At present,
only 209 beds are available for burn patients at four major state-run hospitals in Punjab. After all this,
Shehbaz had
the audacity to say that the last 70 years of corruption was one of the chief causes of the Bahawalpur tragedy. He conveniently forgot that out of the last 70 years, at least 30 years can be attributed to his family’s rule over Punjab.
To add further insult to the injury,
Rana Sanaullah, a senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader from Punjab, brazenly stated that it’s not possible to make a
burn centre in every hospital in Punjab. He was apparently hinting towards lack of funds as the cause of deficient burn centres.
The question is, then, how does the government have Rs300 billion for the unrequired
Metro bus project, Rs70 million of
public funds to
build a bomb proof wall along the Jaati Umra agriculture state, and enough money to buy extremely expensive Russian helicopters for personal use, but no money for burn units?
Moreover, the cheques handed out
as compensation had
allegedly bounced as well. This was denied by the officials, but we can never know with this government.
What’s worse is that a meagre amount of
Rs10 million was imposed on Shell by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA). Shell even refused to accept responsibility for the incident,
shifting the blame on the victims’ lack of awareness and the Motorway Police’s delayed response.
A pattern of indifference can be detected where everyone seems to be shrugging off their responsibility and blaming the other party instead. Most people went as far to place the entire blame on the deceased victims, terming them as greedy. What a shame. It must be convenient to blame individuals who can’t speak for themselves anymore.
A long history of the Sharif brothers’ oppression in South Punjab has led to disastrous incidents. In Lodhran, Shehbaz had committed fraud by being dishonest about the
kissan (farmer) package which was
rejected by the farmers union since it was a mere ploy to win the local elections.
When these farmers protested, they were
viciously beaten by police thugs upon the Sharifs’ directives. Furthermore, a few months ago in Layyah, a South Punjab district,
30 people died due to the absence of a stomach cleaning machine.
Some would wonder whether placing the entire onus on the existing government is justified. I would say it is because currently, they are in charge and it is their duty to uphold and establish facilities for the betterment of their citizens, something which they haven’t been able to do so far.
But why would the Sharif brothers, who themselves
rush to London for medical check-ups, be concerned about the welfare of their citizens?
If our leaders remain apathetic, we can expect more deaths if an incident like Bahawalpur occurs again. It’s all about
priorities. And let’s not forget that the issue is not just about the incident itself; it is about what happened afterwards in the
absence of basic facilities, a delayed response and a lack of security officials at the site.
The least this government can do is learn a lesson from this ill-fated incident and rectify the aforementioned issues to pay homage to the victims of the Bahalwapur inferno.
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Kashif Abbasi Published November 1, 2018
40
Former premier Nawaz Sharif. — Photo/File
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was informed on Wednesday that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif during his tenure used helicopters for 2,167 hours, while incumbent premier Imran Khan has so far used them for 33 hours only.
The house was also told that out of the total 10 helicopters of the Cabinet Division four are unserviceable.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan, while taking part in the debate over status of helicopters in the fleet of Cabinet Division, also said that former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi used helicopters for 464 hours.
Earlier, in response to a question asked by PPP’s Nasiba Channa, the minister in charge of Cabinet Division in his written reply stated that 2xUH-I H helicopters gifted by the US in 1974 and 2xBell — 412helicopters, which were purchased in 1992, were unserviceable.
The Cabinet Division said that 5xAW-139 were purchased in 2007 and IxAW-139 was bought in 2016.
Ali Mohammad Khan told the house that various proposals, including auctioning of out of order helicopters, were under consideration. It is also being considered to give these helicopters to some other government organisations, he said.
Challenging the reply of Cabinet Division about use of helicopters, PPP’s Shagufta Jumani said that helicopters were not being used for anti-smuggling surveillance and survey of road construction — one of the uses of these helicopters mentioned by the Cabinet Division in its reply.
She said that helicopters are mainly being used for transporting VIPs. To this, the minister of state said that the helicopters were misused in the past, but not by the PTI government.
He said these helicopters had also been used for transportation of ‘Siri Pai’.
Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2018
2-4 posts tu mai bhi ker sakta hun, but I only take Dollars, can you forward it to PMLN's media cell brigade ?
