Imran calls protest ‘final round for change’
LAHORE: Declaring Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari the biggest tax evaders of the country, PTI Chairman Imran Khan has asked his party workers to preserve their energies for the Nov 30 ‘mega show’ in Islamabad, terming it final round for bringing a change in Pakistan.
“The Nov 30 will be remembered as a day for change in the nation’s destiny,” Khan said while addressing a seminar organised by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) on National Health Policy at a local hotel on Thursday.
He said more than 70 per cent parliamentarians not paying tax would have been in jail in a civilised society for being defaulters.
The venue echoed with “Go Nawaz Go” shortly after arrival of the PTI chief.
“A rich man like Nawaz Sharif is paying just Rs5,000 tax,” said Imran Khan while strongly criticising the prime minister.
Rapping the prevailing culture of tax evasion in Pakistan, he said only 0.8 million people paid tax due to the “faulty policies” of the PML-N government.
The PTI chief said he did not know what was going to happen on Nov 30 in Islamabad, adding the event would however, defiantly decide future of the nation.
He rapped the Sharif family for filling top administrative positions in Pakistan with its own members.
He accused PPP co-chairperson of having double standards, saying Asif Ali Zardari himself told him by phone that the returning officers (ROs) did not demonstrate fair play in 2013 elections but at the same time he was supporting the PML-N government.
He said Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Asfandar Yar Wali also endorsed Zardari’s viewpoint.
“In PP-147, the ballots of 60 polling stations were missing and evidences in this regard were enough to understand that the PML-N government was formed on the basis of fraud elections”, Irman Khan said.
He deplored that Pakistan had the lowest investment in terms of education and health sectors, resulting in more than four million children’s deaths every year due to unavailability of clean drinking water.
“The deteriorating situation in government hospitals and schools has exposed the good governance of the PML-N government”, he said. Instead of focusing on health and education, he said the Punjab government had wasted Rs40 billion on Metro Bus.
Mr Khan said Pakistan was among resource-rich countries having a large amount of coal, gas, gemstones, copper and gold reserves.
“I came to know that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was also blessed with natural resources and the PTI government was planning to utilise the same in the best interest of the public”, he said.
He said timber mafia had earned Rs100 billion black money during the past governments in KP.
PTI party leaders Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Shafqat Mahmood, PMA office-bearers Prof Dr Ashraf Nizami, Dr Tanvir Ahmad and Dr Izhar also addressed the seminar.
A large number of senior doctors also attended the seminar.
Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2014