Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s 16 foreign visits between July 2013 and September 2014 cost the nation over Rs 294 million, a report in the local media said on Wednesday.
According to information submitted in the Senate by PM’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, the expenditure statements of the premier’s three visits in September 2014 and one in December were still awaited from the respective missions abroad.
The total number of foreign visits undertaken by the prime minister from July 2013 to December 2014 comes to 20. These visits included three each to United States, China and United Kingdom, two to Turkey and one each to Thailand, Hague, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Germany and Nepal.
The first official visit was to China which Aziz said provided an opportunity to the prime minister to meet the Chinese leadership for projecting Pakistan’s key interests. An expenditure of Rs 26.2 million was incurred on the visit from July 3 to 8, 2013.
Sharif visited Turkey from September 16-18 where he co-chaired a meeting of the Strategic Cooperation Council along with his Turkish counterpart. An amount of Rs11.3 million was spent on the visit, according to Aziz.
The prime minister’s week-long visit (September 23-29, 2013) to New York was the most expensive as Rs 91.6 million were spent on it. Days after the visit, Sharif again traveled to Washington and held a bilateral meeting with the US president. This was the first official visit of a Pakistani prime minister to Washington in over a decade. The cost of the visit was Rs 35 million.
After the October 20-23 US visit, the premier went to the United Kingdom on October 29-30 to attend World Islamic Economic Forum’s and Pakistan-Afghanistan-UK trilateral summit. Rs 30.9 million were spent on that visit.
The prime minister visited Colombo, Sri Lanka, from November 14 to 17, 2013, and Bangkok, Thailand, from November 17 to 19. An amount of Rs 11.8 million and Rs 9.7 million were spent on the two visits, respectively.
The minimum expenditure of Rs 1.4 million incurred when Sharif undertook a day-long visit to Afghanistan on November 30, 2013. An amount of Rs 6.9 million was spent on his visit to Turkey (February 12-15 , 2015), Rs 12.9 million on a tour to Hague from March 23-25, 2014, Rs 11.7 million on a visit to China from April 8 to 11, 2014, and Rs 2.5 million on a visit to United Kingdom from April 29 to May 4, 2014.
He visited Iran from May 11-12, 2014, India from May 26-27, 2014 and Tajikistan from June 17-18. An amount of Rs 2.8 million, Rs 4.3 million and Rs 3.7 million were spent on these visits respectively.
The cost of his third visit to the US from September 24-27, 2014, stood at Rs 31.7 million. He visited China from November 7-9, 2014, Germany from November 10-12, Nepal from November 25-28 and United Kingdom from December 2-6, 2014. The details of the expenditure of the last four visits are yet to be received from Pakistan’s missions abroad.
The list of foreign tours undertaken by the prime minister does not mention his visits to Saudi Arabia.
Which other P M in the world can match this?
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