KOHAT: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that his party will not let the government drag out the Panama leaks issue up to 2018.
“We will not let them drag out this matter up to 2018. We should not step back from holding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family accountable,” Khan said during his address to a party rally in Kohat on Sunday.
The Panama Papers on April 3 revealed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s three children were among dozens of powerful people from across the globe who owned offshore companies in a tax haven.
The PTI chief, yet again, threatened the government with street protests if the premier is not investigated. “I will take to the streets with my people if they do not hold the powerful accountable,” he said to a charged crowd.
Commenting on the parliamentary committee discussing the terms of reference (ToRs) for the commission, which would investigate the Panama leaks, Khan said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was scared of the investigation and it was delaying the matter deliberately. “If Sharif has not committed any corruption… why are PML-N leaders worried about the ToRs?” he asked.
He said that Sharif abused his power and made a fortune out of his rule in the past. “Before you [Sharif] came into power, you had only one company, but you ended up owning 28 companies…you abused the power.” “Building factories after coming into power is corruption. A corrupt leader destroys the society. The country, which has a corrupt leadership, cannot make progress,” he said.
He also criticised the metro train projects in Punjab, saying that investment of this much amount in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would have helped peasants. “Imagine Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has a budget of Rs 113 billion annually. They are spending Rs 200 billion on a metro bus for a 27-kilometre route,” Khan said. He said the government would have built a dam with Rs 113 billion that would have irrigated 300 acres of agricultural land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Khan said he was ready for his accountability under the ToRs, which envisaged across-the-board investigation. He said that Pakistan needed a leadership, which was not afraid of declaring assets and speaking the truth. He said that no leader in the West could benefit from his position.
Had the prime minister answered the questions asked by the opposition parties, he said, the Panama leaks issue would have been resolved by now. He said that Pakistan was the only country in the world that was founded in the name of Islam. He stated that Pakistan should one day become a mighty nation and stop taking loans from other countries. He said that time would come when Pakistan would give loans to poor countries and people of other countries would come to Pakistan for jobs.
The PTI chairman said that the youth was Pakistan’s biggest power. He said that educating the women was equally important for the country’s prosperity. He said that Pakistan should be made a welfare state in line with the dreams of its founders. He criticised Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman and said, “Diesel should be filled in tanks; they should not be given votes.”
Referring to the size of the Kohat public meeting, Khan said he did not expect that people in such large numbers would attend the event in this extremely hot weather. He prayed for Sharif’s speedy recovery and thanked his supporters for welcoming him in Kohat.
