ISLAMABAD (Agencies): 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 “nothing wrong” in the leaked conversations and that Tarin, in the leaked conversations, was merely giving “advice” to PTI’s provincial finance ministers to ask the federal government to renegotiate with the IMF — something he claimed was necessary in light of the devastations caused by the floods.
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. “We only wanted the provincial finance minister to write to the federal government so “pressure falls on these b* … they’re jailing us, filing terrorism charges against us and they’re going away completely scot-free. We can’t allow this to happen,” the voice purportedly that of Tarin’s is heard telling Leghari.
Leghari — who unlike Jhagra has yet to confirm or deny if the audio is genuine — asks Tarin whether the activity would hurt the state, to which Tarin responds: “Well … frankly speaking, isn’t the state suffering the way they are treating your chairman and everybody else? This will definitely happen that the IMF will ask ‘where will you arrange the money from’ and they (the government) will bring another mini-budget.” Tarin further says that it could not be allowed that “they 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.”
Later in the leaked conversation, Tarin tells Leghari that the mechanism of the information’s release to the public would be decided later. “We will do something so it doesn’t seem we are hurting the state but we should at least present the facts that you won’t be able to give [budget surplus] so our commitment is zero.”
In the other audio, Tarin can be heard asking Jhagra whether he had drawn up a similar letter. “[The IMF commitment] is a blackmailing tactic and no one will release money anyway. I won’t release them, I don’t know about Leghari,” says the man, alleged to be Jhagra.
Tarin says the letter, once drafted, would also be sent to the IMF representative so “these b* know that the money they were forcing us into giving will be kept by us”. PTI senior leader Shireen Mazari was the first to acknowledge the audio clips, saying there was “nothing illegal or wrong” in the conversations. “We have publicly opposed the terms on which the imported govt is taking loan from IMF.” “But what is illegal is the wire tapping done on conversation without court order. A criminal offence,” she tweeted.
