Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Senior Minister for Industries and Defence Production Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi tactfully tried to win public goodwill through misleading media coverage of presenting a cheque of Rs 50 million to the prime minister for the flood relief fund.
The cheque was in fact a donation from two government organisations. A source in the PML-Q told Pakistan Today that the cheque had been donated not by the Chaudhrys, their family or the PML-Q, rather the generous donation had been made from the accounts of two public sector organizations – the Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) and Utility Stores Corporation (USC) – which fall under the domain of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Industries, respectively. Elahi is the federal minister for industries, while Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain is the federal minister for the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
The Chaudhrys presented the cheque to the prime minister on Friday. The state-run news agency, Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), ran a report, saying “PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain called on Prime Minister Gilani on Friday and presented a cheque of Rs 50 million for the flood relief fund”.
The report creates an impression that Shujaat had donated the amount for flood relief efforts and the captions of photos of presentation of the cheque appeared in newspapers on Saturday also gave the impression that the amount had been donated by the Chaudhrys or their party. On the other hand, PML-Q, which has always been active in humanitarian works in the past events of natural calamities, has yet not launched any aggressive campaign to help flood affected people in Sindh.
Chaudhrys’ flood donation was a sham
