Brushing audit report under the carpet: Govt can’t hide COVID corruption, says Bilawal

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Friday the government could not be able to hide its corruption with making efforts to bury the audit report of Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) on COVID-19 expenditures.

“Even efforts to bury the AGP damning report on severe irregularities of COVID-19 funds would fail as it would be impossible for the Prime Minister to keep the rampant corruption of his government hidden,” he said in a statement.

Bilawal said the people of Pakistan were passing through the most difficult times only because of incompetence and ineptitude of the absurd policies of the PTI-led federal government. “We are in the midst of perhaps the worst economic crisis our country has seen, and instead of making policies to take us out of it, and remedying the damage to the economy, the prime minister is busy persecuting and slandering the opposition,” he said. He said COVID-19 is not an excuse that we will allow the prime minister to hide behind as every decision this government has taken has brought us further to ruin. “And it is clear that Imran Khan serves only the interests of the wealthy.” He said the federal government under Prime Minister Imran Khan has proven to be absolutely unfit for the job of governing Pakistan. “Governance, to the prime minister, seems to mean taking notice of sky-rocketing inflation but doing nothing to counter it,” he said.

“Rhe only tangible action the prime minister seems to take is replacing plaques on public welfare projects with ones bearing his name as there is not a single project that has benefitted the country that Imran can claim credit for,” he maintained. “All we have to show for two and half years of his inept government are broken promises and bold face lies, coupled with back breaking debt and soul crushing inflation. When the nation demands leadership, we get the same tired ad hominem attacks on his opponents from the Prime Minister.” Bilawal opined that with declining wages, the rupees devaluation, and rapidly growing income disparity, it is the government’s responsibility to serve the weakest, not the strongest. “Announcing lucrative incentives for the elites and crony capitalists would only make the rich richer at the cost of the poor,” he said. The PPP chairman accused the premier of driving the country to the brink of disaster. “As the government lurches from one crisis to the next, the prime minister deflects blame to the opposition. Imran Khan is incapable of even a base level of introspection,” he said.