‘Rubbish, totally rubbish’

ISLAMABAD: Did army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa ever tell any journalist that $9 billion out of total $19 billion initial Chinese investment into the CPEC projects was siphoned off by the-then PMLN government and others?

A claim to this respect, made by an anchor of ARY in his talk show, surprised many. Different media persons raised questions through the social media on the authenticity of this claim and sought response from the ISPR DG.

The News also contacted the defence sources and one of them who is close to the army chief, while quoting General Bajwa, said, “Rubbish, totally rubbish.” The ARY anchor had claimed in a recent show that General Bajwa had told him in the presence of two others that $9 billion was stolen out of total initial Chinese investment of $19 billion under CPEC during the PMLN government at the Centre and in Punjab. He further said that he had asked the army chief then why no action has been initiated against those responsible.

The army chief, the ARY anchor claimed, told him that Chinese had the evidence of this but they were shy to share the details in public. The anchor claimed that if anyone dares to contradict him, then he would respond.

The News shared the video clip of the anchor's claim with a defence source close to the army chief. General Bajwa, the source said, responded to the ARY’s claim by saying, “Rubbish, totally rubbish.”

The video of the ARY’s claim became viral and some journalists took it up on the social media. Senior journalist Chaudhry, the ARY anchor, said that COAS Gen Bajwa told him that Nawaz/Shehbaz governments siphoned off 9 billion dollars of CPEC money during the last tenure. Solangi tagged the Pemra’s and DGISPR Twitter handle in the tweet and asked, “How can some anchors make such outlandish allegations? Any idea how big of an amount 9 billion dollars is?”