ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the National Assembly on Monday that there was an alleged corruption of over Rs 36 million (1.6 million riyals) in Haj arrangements this year.
He was responding to opposition’s complains that the government was not apprising the House about the details of the Haj scam.
Malik told the House that on the directives of the Interior Ministry, several accused, including former Haj DG Rao Shakeel, had been arrested and investigations were underway, details of which would be provided to parliament soon.
He said the ministry had launched an anti-corruption campaign and sacked several officers for their involvement in corruption, adding that the ministry would keep on informing parliament about the progress made in this respect.
Malik said due to efforts by the Interior Ministry, the government had recovered Rs 1.4 billion from the accused in the National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL) scam. He said the Federal Investigation Agency could only conduct investigation within federal government institutions, and could not probe provincial departments.
“I will soon hold separate meetings with provincial chief ministers to evolve a mechanism to check corruption in provincial departments,” he added.
Earlier, Interior Minister Malik handed a political knock-out to Opposition Leader Nisar Ali Khan, telling him to stop meeting foreign envoys in violation of rules and stop drumming up baseless facts that the diplomats were interfering in the country’s internal affairs and the government was not taking notice of their statements.
Responding to Nisar’s reference to US Ambassador Cameron Munter’s statement that the GST bill should be passed by parliament, Malik said if political parties stopped meeting foreign envoys, the government would strictly implement the rules that barred the diplomats from travelling freely in the country and meeting people without the knowledge of the foreign and interior ministries.
“When we ask them (the envoys), they tell us that they had been invited for meetings. When we (the politicians) meet them and talk to them freely, they make statements regarding our internal matters,” Malik said, asking the House to form a committee and decide the issue for once.
However, Nisar did not rebut or endorse the interior minister’s proposal, wherein Malik also referred to the former US ambassador’s frequent meetings with PML-N leaders in Lahore.
Speaking on a point of order earlier, Nisar said the PML-N had not attended the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee to protest the non-implementation of its decisions.
“The government bulldozes decisions of the Business Advisory Committee and tables crucial legislative bills in the darkness of night without taking the opposition on board, as it did in the last session by tabling the controversial GST bill on the last day of the sitting,” he added.
He said the government should not push the opposition to the extent that the Pakistani parliament started resembling parliaments of India, Taiwan and South Korea.
