PTI Secretary General Asad Umar and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra on Monday defended and all but acknowledged the authenticity of the audio leaks attributed to PTI Senator Shaukat Tarin regarding the crucial International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme<\/p>\n
Umar said there was \u201cnothing wrong\u201d in the leaked conversations and that Tarin, in the leaked conversations, was merely giving \u201cadvice\u201d to PTI\u2019s provincial finance ministers to ask the federal government to renegotiate with the IMF \u2014 something he claimed was necessary in light of the devastations caused by the floods.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, two audio clips surfaced via TV channels and social media; in one, the man said to be Tarin can be heard guiding Punjab Finance Minister Mohsin Leghari to tell the federal government and the IMF that he would not be able to commit to a provincial budget surplus in light of the recent floods that have wreaked havoc in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe only wanted the provincial finance minister to write to the federal government so \u201cpressure falls on these b******* \u2026 they\u2019re jailing us, filing terrorism charges against us and they\u2019re going away completely scot-free. We can\u2019t allow this to happen,\u201d the voice purportedly that of Tarin\u2019s is heard telling Leghari.<\/p>\n
Leghari \u2014 who unlike Jhagra has yet to confirm or deny if the audio is genuine \u2014 asks Tarin whether the activity would hurt the state, to which Tarin responds: \u201cWell \u2026 frankly speaking, isn\u2019t the state suffering the way they are treating your chairman and everybody else? This will definitely happen that the IMF will ask \u2018where will you arrange the money from\u2019 and they (the government) will bring another mini-budget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tarin further says that it could not be allowed that \u201cthey mistreat us and we stand on one side and they blackmail us in the name of the state and ask for help and we keep helping them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the leaked conversation, Tarin tells Leghari that the mechanism of the information\u2019s release to the public would be decided later.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will do something so it doesn\u2019t seem we are hurting the state but we should at least present the facts that you won\u2019t be able to give [budget surplus] so our commitment is zero.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the other audio, Tarin can be heard asking Jhagra whether he had drawn up a similar letter.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The IMF commitment] is a blackmailing tactic and no one will release money anyway. I won\u2019t release them, I don\u2019t know about Leghari,\u201d says the man, alleged to be Jhagra.<\/p>\n
Tarin says the letter, once drafted, would also be sent to the IMF representative so \u201cthese b******* know that the money they were forcing us into giving will be kept by us\u201d.<\/p>\n
PTI senior leader Shireen Mazari was the first to acknowledge the audio clips, saying there was \u201cnothing illegal or wrong\u201d in the conversations. \u201cWe have publicly opposed the terms on which the imported govt is taking loan from IMF.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what is illegal is the wire tapping done on conversation without court order. A criminal offence,\u201d she tweeted.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Jhagra had written a letter to Finance Minister Miftah Ismail just three days ahead of the IMF executive board\u2019s meeting scheduled for Aug 29 (today) to approve the disbursement of a $1.18 billion tranche to Pakistan under a bailout package. In the letter, Jhagra informed Ismail that his KP administration might find it difficult to run a provincial surplus this year in view of flood-related damages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PTI Secretary General Asad Umar and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra on Monday defended and all but acknowledged the authenticity of the audio leaks attributed to PTI Senator Shaukat Tarin regarding the crucial International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme Umar said there was \u201cnothing wrong\u201d in the leaked conversations and that Tarin, in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[243,186,676,1612],"class_list":{"0":"post-280236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news","8":"tag-asad-umar","9":"tag-imf","10":"tag-shaukat-tarin","11":"tag-taimur-saleem-jhagra"},"yoast_head":"\n