ISLAMABAD: Former finance minister of PTI Shaukat Tareen admitted that he asked the ISI chief Gen. Faiz Hameed to speed up the case against him in the NAB.
He said, “The cases could have been finished on merit if heard without delay. Everyone knew I was innocent.”
The former finance minister stated this on a talk show on a private TV channel.
His reaction was in response to comments of General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa, who opposed the appointment of Shaukat Tareen as finance minister.
During the PTI regime, PM Imran Khan decided to appoint Tareen as the next finance minister after Dr. Hafeez Shaikh. At that time, Gen. Bajwa asked Khan not to appoint Tareen as finance minister saying that he (Tareen) could not run a small bank (Silkbank) and how would he run the economy of Pakistan.
After retirement, Gen. Bajwa shared some unreported inside news about Imran Khan and the PTI government with a TV anchor and columnist, Javed Chaudhry.
Bajwa told the anchor some crucial matters to expose Khan and the PTI government’s wrong strategies at a time when IK and his party were holding Bajwa responsible for regime change and criticising him everywhere
Bajwa said, “We tried to convince the prime minister [Imran Khan] against appointing Tarin as finance minister. I told the PM that Tarin, who failed to run his bank, would ruin the economy. The premier disagreed.”
“NAB was probing Rs8bn corruption case against Tarin. The PM asked us to have these cases dismissed…. and Gen Faiz Hamid got these cases scrapped from NAB,” the column cited Gen (retd) Bajwa as saying.”
I am an experienced writer, analyst, and author. My exposure in English journalism spans more than 28 years. In the past, I have been working with daily The Muslim (Lahore Bureau), daily Business Recorder (Lahore/Islamabad Bureaus), Daily Times, Islamabad, daily The Nation (Lahore and Karachi). With daily The Nation, I have served as Resident Editor, Karachi. Since 2009, I have been working as a Freelance Writer/Editor for American organizations.
