ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan’s close aide and recently-designated Special Assistant, Naeemul Haque on Thursday said “the impression that the premier’s friends are being given government portfolios is wrong”.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader took to Twitter and said he is one of the five founding members of the party.
“I joined politics in 1984 with Tehreek-e-Istaqlal and contested 1988 NA elections from Karachi and am one of the five original founders of PTI,” he asserted.
Haque’s statement comes days after PM Imran’s close friend, Zulfi Bukhari, was appointed as special assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, who will have the status of a state minister.
Zulfi’s appointment has drawn widespread criticism on the social media.
Bukhari is a close aide to the prime minister and was in charge of the PTI chairman’s campaign in NA-53 for the July 25, 2018 elections.
A dual British-Pakistani national, his name was placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) by the Interior Ministry in August on a request of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
He is accused of owning offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands and owning assets beyond his known source of income, according to NAB.
Bukhari had come into the limelight earlier this year when he was stopped by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) at Nur Khan Airbase while accompanying Khan to Saudi Arabia because his name was on the Interior Ministry’s blacklist. However, the ministry allowed him to travel abroad minutes later.
Upon his return, Bukhari filed a petition before the Islamabad High Court seeking the removal of his name from the blacklist. The court accepted his petition and ordered the removal of his name from the blacklist. A week later, the court was informed by the interior ministry that Bukhari was placed on the blacklist as a precautionary measure in response to a request from NAB to include his name on the ECL, because the subcommittee tasked with approving the inclusion of names in the ECL was dysfunctional at the time the request was sent.
The IHC subsequently allowed the Interior Ministry to proceed with NAB’s request to place Bukhari on the ECL.
Moreover, despite having a dual nationality, Pakistani law doesn’t bar Zulfi from assuming the office of special assistant to prime minister because he is not a parliamentarian.
