PM’s foreign visits: LHC summons Finance Dept official

LAHORE: Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday summoned a Finance Department official while hearing a petition filed against the foreign visits of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The judge directed the official to appear on June 13. The judge had already ordered for submission of details about the PM’s foreign visits their expenditures. Petitioner Barrister Syed Javed Iqbal Jafree said that there was a shortage of medicines at public hospitals. “The county is burdened with a huge amount of foreign and domestic debt. However, our PM is in the habit of getting his medical treatment from abroad on public money. The government should have established a hospital in the country where the PM could get satisfactory treatment,” he said. “Taxpayers’ money is being spent by the PM and his family on foreign tours,” he said. He also requested the court to restrain the government from spending public money on advertisements about the prime minister and his party.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2016.