Pakistan govt paid almost $12B Dollars to IPPs (independent power producers) during 11 months of last fiscal year.
◾This is almost equal of loans Pakistan has secured from IMF during last three years (2023-2026).
◾ Pakistani govt pays IPPs huge sum of money in capacity payment, resulting in expensive electricity for users.
Resignations or suspensions are not enough! Criminal prosecution and serious punishment is required for everyone responsible for the lack of appropriate safeguards and the appointment of incompetent officials!
Met a 50+ guy at Islamabad excise registering a new Haval H6 for his son (who was in the car cause AC). It’s the first SUV in the bloodline, he himself has only driven a Honda City.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men...”
Prime Minister @andyburnham and Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband : how much longer will Britain remain silent?
For three years the father of my two sons, and Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has been brutally penalised by his political opponents, in a personal vendetta by Army Chief, Asim Munir, which according to the UN, amounts to torture and which is now taking a potentially fatal toll on his physical and mental health.
He has endured 3 years of solitary confinement. For nearly ten months now his family has been denied contact with him. He has been deprived of the most basic human contact, denied access to books, lawyers and doctors.
The international human-rights standards are unequivocal. Under the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules, solitary confinement lasting more than 15 consecutive days is prohibited and amounts to torture.
He has endured this treatment not for 15 days, but for three years.
Pakistan’s own Supreme Court has now intervened: ordering comprehensive medical treatment, access to his personal doctor, regular family visits and twice-weekly calls with his sons.
Yet those orders are being defied.
This is no longer simply a Pakistani political matter. It is a human-rights emergency.
He has deep and lifelong ties to Britain. He studied at Oxford University, captained Oxford University cricket and spent years playing county cricket in England. His relationship with this country stretches back more than half a century. His charitable activities were internationally recognised, and include building the only free cancer hospital in Pakistan as well as a university.
His sons, my two boys, Sulaiman and Kasim, are British citizens. They have been forced to watch their father’s health decline from thousands of miles away, prevented from visiting him, denied visas, publicly threatened by government officials with arrest themselves, and even denied court-mandated regular phone calls.
I have repeatedly appealed to the UK government to intervene. Purported attempts at back channelling have evidently failed. The previous Foreign Secretary @DavidLammy informed me in writing that Britain would not intervene if my sons, British citizens, are arrested when they travel to Pakistan to visit their father.
@FCDOGovUK: Britain must now speak out publicly and unequivocally. Demand that Pakistan comply with its own Supreme Court; restore Imran Khan’s medical access, his right to see his family, end his prolonged isolation and uphold his fundamental human rights.
Pakistan is a Commonwealth country. Britain has a long and proud tradition of standing against arbitrary detention, inhumane treatment and the denial of fundamental rights. Those principles mean very little if we invoke them only selectively and neglect them when inconvenient.
This an appeal to the new Burnham government to please now do the right thing.
Twice, I was graciously offered a gratis blue passport by the Govt—first as one of the country's highest taxpayers, and again this year as Chairman of one of its largest exporters. I respectfully declined both times. By the grace of Almighty Allah, my green Pakistani passport has always been a matter of pride and has served me well across the world
According to govts own figures ; Poverty increased by 7%, Exports fell by 5%, Textiles r down by 0.5%, Iron & Steel down by 6.6%, Tractor sales are on a historic low, credit to businesses is down by 9%. Top it up with IMF’s demand to increase taxes. Where’s the recovery?
GDP growth of 3.7% is nowhere to celebrate with 2.6% population growth!
Unemployment increased, 7.1% claimed but seems like way more & exports decreased....
More Pakistanis left the country, also illegally, tired of the system & economy.