ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday said that the amnesty granted to the Sharif family through the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case had made money laundering more common in the country.
The prime minister said this during a meeting with Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry who called on him at Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday.
PM Khan directed Fawad to use the media to create awareness among the masses regarding the harmful effects of money laundering on the national economy. He also asked him to expose the culprits through the media.
Criticising former rulers of the country, the prime minister said that they had looted the country’s wealth and had buried it under piles of debt. “The former rulers will be held accountable for taking $60 billion loan in the last 10 years,” he said.
PM Khan also said that constitutional amendments would help curb the menace of money laundering and other similar crimes in the country. He said that in the past, corrupt rulers robbed the nation of its wealth and laundered that money abroad.
“Former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supreme leader Nawaz Sharif and former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari used the same model,” he added.
He said that the chapter of money laundering the country’s history would have been closed had former president Pervez Musharraf not granted amnesty to the Sharif family through an NRO.
