ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has summoned PTI’s former finance minister Shaukat Tarin in an alleged phone call between the ex-finance czar and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra about sabotaging the IMF loan deal.
In the audio call, Shaukat Tarin could be heard that he tried to influence Jhagra to refuse to accept terms agreed by the federal government with the IMF to foil the resumption of a loan program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The plan ultimately failed when IMF resumed the programme on August 29 and disbursed $1.16 billion the following day.
On Tuesday, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) issued summons to Shaukat Tarin to appear before the investigators in the leaked audio case.
The FIA said that they have both the recording of the call and its transcript and that they are summoning former finance minister to their zonal office in Islamabad on Wednesday to answer questions regarding the audio.
On August 29, an audio emerged of a call between Tarin and Jhagra in which the former is heard urging the latter to backtrack from the commitment of a provincial surplus given to the IMF, thereby scuttling the deal.
A similar call was made to the incumbent Punjab Finance Minister Mohsin Leghari but Leghari showed reluctance in toeing Tarin’s stance.
