Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said on Wednesday that proofs of corruption of those who plundered national wealth merciless were also coming from abroad.
Tagging a DW news story, in a series of tweets she said that this corruption was tantamount to playing with the national defence and security. The nation should be informed where that looted money had gone, she asked. She questioned how much money was spent on payment of Bilawal Zardari’s school fee and how much on purchase of Surrey palace. She said that they destroyed the future of the poor and built palaces for themselves, they pushed the poor in quagmire of inflation while they purchased costly horses.
She said that the looters did not spare the funds allocated for purchase of medicines for the children, school budgets, funds for construction of roads, hospitals. She said they ruined the system like parasites.
The DW news story quoted France’s top prosecutor as saying that former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur would face court over allegations of kickbacks from a submarine deal with Pakistan helped finance his 1995 presidential campaign. He said that the “Karachi affair” was a major scandal involving negotiations between then Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the French presidencies of Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac for sale of Agosta 90B-class
submarines. A contract was eventually signed in 1994.
Balladur served as prime minister of France between 1993 and 1995 under Mitterrand, but lost his subsequent bid for the presidency to Chirac.
Separately, Firdous said the federal and Azad Jammu and Kashmir governments were jointly working on relief and rehabilitation process of earthquake victims of Mirpur.
Speaking at the cheque distribution ceremony for the victims of earthquake, she said that Prime Minister of Pakistan, feeling the pain of quake victims, himself visited the area and a plan of action was finalized for rehabilitation of the victims.
The ceremony was also attended by Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme Dr Sania Nishtar and Chairman PTI AJK Barrister Sultan Mehmood.
She said that the cheque distribution ceremony was the first phase of assistance and the process would continue till complete rehabilitation of the affected families.
She said that the nation showed great unity after the quake and this spirit would be kept alive in future as well.
She said that AJK was also affected in 2005 earthquake and at that time the nation demonstrated great spirit of help and selflessness in helping the victims.
She said that computerized data of the losses in the earthquake was being prepared so that it could be ensured that all deserving people got the compensation amount. Dr Firdous said that on the directives of Prime Minister, cheques worth Rs 500,000 were being given to the relatives of each deceased person from the federal government and equal amount was being given by AJK government.
She said that Rs 100,000 each was being paid to 150 seriously injured persons whereas Rs 50,000 were being paid to 600 injured, whereas Rs 200,000 were being paid as compensation for completely damaged houses and Rs 100,000 for partially damaged houses.
She said that cheques were being presented to 38 families in the first phase.
She said that traders community would be paid Rs 50 thousand for damaged shops while Rs 25 thousand would be paid for partially damaged shops. She said that Rs 50,000 compensation would be paid per cattle head killed in the earthquake.
Dr Firdous said that in the first phase, Rs 200,000 would be paid to one thousand families whose houses were badly damaged whereas in the second phase, Rs 100,000 would be paid to 2300 other families whose houses were damaged considerably. For 1256 partially damaged houses, Rs 50,000 would be paid, she added.
She paid special tributes to Pakistan Armed Forces for remaining on the forefront of rescue and relief activities. She thanked the media for highlighting the problems of the victims of the earthquake.
