‘Puppets are failing to manage country’

GHOTKI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday criticised the new tax amnesty scheme by the government describing it as a "slap in the face of taxpayers".

He said that the selected prime minister was bringing amnesty schemes, whether to whiten black money of Aleema Khan, his friends’ Benami accounts and the money which he got in the name of cancer hospital to utilise on election. He said Prime Minister Imran had criticised the past rulers when they brought amnesty schemes. "Whose black money you want to turn white through amnesty scheme? Is it of Jahangir Tareen’s, yours or Aleema Baji’s?" he asked. "Imran Khan, do you want to whiten the black money of your properties converted into offshore firm? Do you want to whiten the black money of the properties built by earning through Aleema Baji’s sewing machines?"

He alleged that owing to the economic policies of the puppet government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan is going bankrupt. Bilawal said that the rulers are incompetent, liars, ill-intentioned and fraudster.

Addressing a public gathering in the Khangarh area of Ghotki, Bilawal lashed out at PM Imran Khan for his economic policies and called Imran Khan a ‘puppet’. The PPP chairman said the puppet had announced 10 million jobs, however, the youth was being unemployed today.

Bilawal accused the government of intending to amend the consensus Constitution given by the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. "They want to do away with the 18th Amendment slowly and gradually, and want to usurp the rights of Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa," he alleged. "They want to bring the One Unit system. Do they want to split the country?" One Unit System had split the country in the past, he said.

"We have rendered sacrifices and we will not let the Constitution to be harmed," he asserted. Bilawal said they knew that stronger provinces would result in a strong Federation, adding, "But this 'benami' prime minister wants to deprive you of your rights". He warned PM Imran Khan of dire consequences over the 18th Amendment and making Pakistan One Unit.

He asserted that the Federation was not going bankrupt owing to the 18th Amendment but because of policies of the puppet prime minister and his incompetency. "We will not let the Constitution to be harmed."

The selected prime minister in a year announced three budgets. "The Federation is being pushed towards bankruptcy due to your economic policies," he said. The rates of medicines, petrol, electricity and gas have been touching the sky. Power outages and inflation have added to miseries of people, he said.

He said that he had told Imran not to go to IMF and bow before the IMF as it was actually to mortgage the country as well as sovereignty of the country. He claimed that the selected prime minister, before going to the IMF, had accepted all conditions of the Fund like devaluation of rupee, increasing the rates of electricity, petrol, gas and other things. "He had said he would commit suicide, but won't take loan, nor would go to the IMF," the PPP chairman recounted. Bilawal also criticised PM Imran for not visiting Quetta after the Friday's blast there.