Ex-rulers behaved like monarchs on national kitty: Firdous

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said it was time to hold those accountable, who spent poor masses’ money on their foreign trips and promoted their own business.

In a series of tweets, she said the ‘day of accountability’ of those, who had lavishly spent on their foreign trips; not spending a penny from their own pocket. She also uploaded on her twitter account the details of visits undertaken by ex-president Asif Ali Zardari, former prime ministers Mian Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during their respective tenures.

She regretted that even tip worth millions of rupees was doled out from the national kitty and said had it not been done, the nation would not have been facing poverty today. The special assistant put aside what she called the hue and cry of the opposition parties and asserted that they would not be spared without being held accountable for this lavish spending.

She lamented that the former rules behaved like monarchs on the nation’s money and today, this loot and plunder was being called exploitation. “Official vehicles and foreign trips were also undertaken from the taxpayers’ money. “It is a day of accountability today and they are not stopping crying,” she remarked.

Dr Awan called on ex-minister Ahsan Iqbal of PML-N to first give reply to the questions raised by federal minister Murad Saeed. “The evidence of your crimes are being recovered from official documents, why don’t reply to these,” she emphasised. “You and your leadership had no time from your businesses to run the people’s day-to-day business.

First you de-tracked the economy and then played havoc with it. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi sb you and your PML-N spokespersons should first decide on whom they are ventilating their anger. Not Imran, the courts have sentenced Nawaz Sharif. Imran Khan had not asked you to produce Qatari letter instead of presenting evidence of your innocence,” she said.

Addressing the opposition, she said it was a great achievement of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who had done away with the hold of exploitation. “Puppet PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, following his predecessor, also undertook 19 trips and Rs259.39 million were spent from the national exchequer,” she alleged.