Staff Reporter
Federal Minister for Communications and Postal Services Murad Saeed on Sunday said in a total contrast to the former rulers, Prime Minister Imran Khan had no camp office and had been residing in his personal house instead of the PM House.
The former prime ministers maintained many camp offices, besides the palatial PM House, spending huge amount of the public money in total disregard for the homeless people living on roads, he said while addressing a press conference here.
Murad Saeed said the previous rulers used to embark on foreign tours with big entourages costing millions of dollars to the public exchequer, Prime Minister Imran Khan made the trips abroad with minimum expenses.
The prime minister, he said, had been striving hard to uplift the poor segments of society. On the contrary, the opposition parties were out to protect the corruption of their leadership, he added.
The opposition’s politics of self interests had been rejected by the people, Murad Saeed said.
The minister said former prime minister Yusaf Raza Gilani and ex-president Asif Ali Zardari (of Pakistan Peoples Party), and former PM Nawaz Sharif and former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif (of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) had declared their personal residences as camp offices and got them renovated from public money.
All of them spent lavishly on the maintenance of camp offices and security from the public exchequer, he added.
Murad Saeed said Shehbaz Sharif had spent an amount of Rs 8,725.90 million on his Model Town houses in Lahore after declaring them as camp offices, while Nawaz Sharif’s camp offices cost Rs 4,318.30 million to the public kitty.
Similarly, Asif Ali Zardari spent the public money of Rs 3,164.10 million on his camp office, he added. The minister said when Nawaz Sharif was disqualified as prime minister after the Panama Papers leak, Shehbaz Sharif declared the former’s residence (at Jati Umra) as the chief minister’s camp office with deployment of 2,700 personnel for his (Nawaz’s) security.
The previous rulers used to go for treatment abroad on special chartered planes, he added.
