Imran calls for audit of defence budget

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan has called for audit of all discretionary funds of the president, prime minister, chief ministers and defence budget allocated for the armed forces.
Addressing a press conference to give his party’s response to Budget 2012-13 on Sunday, Khan criticized the government for allocating heavy amount to the armed forces and said the amount allocated for the armed forces should be audited.
Khan criticized the government over the budget presented for the financial year 2012-13 and termed it a fraud with the price-stricken masses. “It is now important to make National Accountability Bureau (NAB) a sovereign institution in a bid to bring to an end corruption of the government which has reached all time high so that the this menace could be stopped,” he said.
He said corruption done in various public sector enterprises had reached billions of rupees and deficit of the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) had reached more than Rs 40 billion in the last few years and likewise was the case of Pakistan International Airlines and Pakistan Railways.
Imran Khan said corrupt people could not survive in the country and corruption had reached a point where the people could not co-exist with it.
He said the country’s political leaders had neither been paying taxes nor correctly declaring their assets. The PTI chief said for the progress of the country it was important that the powerful should pay taxes, as the country could only survive if the powerful were taken into the tax net.
He said outstanding arrears which were a result of 400,000 illegal connections highlighted by the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) had to be borne by the consumers in the shape of tariff hikes.
“A survey conducted by Water and Power Development Authority(WAPDA) depicts that in the last four years, almost 2.8 million air conditioners were bought while bills for only 0.1 million were being paid,” Khan added.
Calling the politics of the PML-N a “drama”, Khan said four Chief Ministers’ Houses were being run in Punjab on taxpayers’ money.
“The Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League are the parties of status quo,” he said, ruling out the impression that the PTI could ever form an alliance with any of them.