Imran’s policies left economy in ruins: PM
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has accused the former premier Imran Khan of being the “the biggest liar on the face of the earth” and injecting poison into society to “dangerously polarise the electorate” ater he was toppled from power earlier this year, The Guardian reported.
Speaking in his first interview from Pakistan since he took over as prime minister in April, Shahbaz, 70, spoke unsparingly of the “damage” that Imran, the former cricket superstar who ruled Pakistan from 2018, had done to the country in both domestic and foreign affairs.
Shahbaz, who is the younger brother of the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and part of one of Pakistan’s most powerful political dynasties, called Imran “a liar and a cheat” whose policies had let the economy in ruins.
He accused Imran, who ran on an anti-corruption manifesto, of conducting the country’s affairs to suit his own personal agenda “in a manner which can be only described as the most inexperienced, self-centred, egotistical, immature politician in the history of this country.”
Shahbaz said the leaked audios were “an irrefutable endorsement that he [Imran] is the biggest liar on the face of the earth. I’m not saying this with a sense of glee but a sense of embarrassment and concern. My country’s image has been damaged hugely by these lies told out of mean personal interest.”
Separately, Shahbaz has issued a rebuke and expressed visible frustration ater finding inadequacies in a dashboard built to monitor flood relief assistance, pointing out that it lacked real-time updates and was not of international standards.
The prime minister let federal ministers Ahsan Iqbal, Aminul Haque, Marriyum Aurangzeb and Tariq Bashir Cheema red-faced as he refused to inaugurate the event and remained seated as he outlined his primary objection with the dashboard — designed by the IT ministry — saying that it was not being updated in real-time.
“If real-time information doesn’t arrive in this then it’s of no use. Then we are wasting each other’s time. I’m not going to inaugurate this now,” he said when informed that data from the meteorological department was not yet integrated with the dashboard.
“This should be trashed,” Shahbaz said, calling it a “joke.”
“I’m not negating your effort but this is not the dashboard we all imagined. This is a stationary thing in which you fill in figures.”