Asad Umar reached US to get IMF bailout package : Federal Cabinet

Lahore : Briefing journalists about decisions taken in the cabinet meeting,chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Federal Minister for Information Ch Fawad Hussain said the prime minister would inaugurate the project in Islamabad where 25,000 housing units would be constructed while in Balochistan 110,000 units.He said for Gwadar fishermen,a special town would be built under the scheme.

He said the cabinet also gave approval to the proposal of building Media University in Pakistan.  He said objective behind establishment of the state-of-the-art university was to give modern technological
training to the future media professionals as presently, we were lagging behind in technology.  Chaudhry Fawad said the media university was being set up with merger of existing academies of Pakistan Television, Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation and Information
Service.  He said media technology, digital media, cinematography, and other modern media techniques would be taught at this university.

He said he may visit China soon to seek professional cooperation for the Media University which was a flagship project of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He said he had discussed the project
with Chinese firms ZTE and  Huawei Technologies Co Ltd  and would also take the United States (US) firms on board.

He said the government was planning to build this university on Public Private Partnership model and no funds from public sector would be spent on it.

He said Finance Minister Asad Umar had reached the United States to hold talks with International Monetary Fund in connection with bailout package.

He said the minister would also discuss Asset Declaration Scheme with IMF officials.

Fawad Hussain said the prime minister also directed crackdown against big fish involved in theft of electricity and gas. He said pilferage of electricity worth Rs 40 billion had been prevented due to effective
measures taken by the present government.

He said cases had been registered against those involved in gas and electricity theft. He said gas worth Rs3 billion had been stolen in last three years. He said 43 percent gas produced in Pakistan was stolen and Karak district was the worst example where 93 per cent gas was unaccounted for while 41 percent in Balochistan.

He said the PML-N leader Sheikh Rohail Asghar’s gas bill had gone up from mere Rs 1,200 rupees per month to over Rs 10 million, which shows massive theft of the commodity. The minister said a train station was
being established at Nankana Sahib after the name of Baba Guru Nanak.
He said the cabinet approved to bind all government departments to use Pakistan Post for official communication.

Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said a grant of 94 million Euros from Germany was also approved to be utilized for the provision of clean drinking water to the residents of Faisalabad.

He said corruption details from Punjab were coming to fore and it had been confirmed that Hudaibiya pattern of money laundering had been used by Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari who were the central
characters of money laundering while there were dozens of secondary characters working as their front men.

The minister said from 1947 to 2008 Pakistan’s total foreign loan stood at $37 billion but from 2008 to 2018, in ten years the foreign loan crossed whopping figure of $97 billion.

He said during ten years of PPP and PML-N rule, additional $60 billion were added in the foreign loan and the question arises where all that money had gone.

Chaudhry Fawad said from $37 billion loan mega projects were built,whereas $60 billion loan taken during 2008 to 2018 was divided among themselves by the former rulers.

He said both the former rulers time and again used the Hudaibia model of fraud. He said the plundered money was sent abroad through Hundi and Hawala and several fake accounts were used for this purpose.