Policies of former PTI govt isolated Pakistan in int’l community: Sherry Rehman
ISLAMABAD, August 12 (SABAH): Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has said that policies of former government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has isolated Pakistan in the international community.
Sherry Rehman said this while addressing a press conference at Press Information Department (PID) on Friday. She said that PTI silently hired an American lobbyist firm to improve its ties with the United States and enhance its advertisement. “You have repeatedly perpetrated propaganda against USA and befooled the nation under your fake narrative,” she added.
She said it was a six-month agreement, for which the PTI will pay $25,000 per month for getting its services. “What kind of hypocrisy is this that the entire nation was involved in propaganda and this party secretly hired a lobbyist firm to get its projection better in the US?” the minister questioned.
Sherry Rehman underlined that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) clearly accused the PTI of receiving prohibited funding from foreign sources. She questioned that some PTI leaders said the agreement was for PTI’s advertisement, adding, “Why do you need advertisement in the USA?”
She also read out the salient features of the agreement done with the lobbyist firm. “As per the U.S. Department of Justice all such agreements with lobbying firms are placed on its website and accessible to all. The media and nation must probe it and held PTI accountable,” she added.
The minister said the Fentone Arlook LLC, Washington-based lobbying firm was hired by the PTI and its reality was exposed which was based on politics and a narrative of hypocrisy.
The minister accused that during the recent visit of the US Ambassador to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the PTI held negotiations with the ambassador and Imran Khan allegedly had secret talks with him in KP.
“You are not going to improve Pakistan’s image but rather your own party’s in the US. Who is imported now as you have been accusing all other political parties for being foreign assisted,” she added.
“Imran Khan used to give sermons to all of us in his press conferences but there is no room left for exposing his fake narrative,” she added.
Sherry Rehman mentioned that the PTI government created an asset recovery unit but did it provide any data to the government on its recoveries. They have left crushing inflation in the country as the PTI took massive debts bigger than the country’s seventy years of foreign loans taken by the International Monetary Fund.
She said, “Now dollars are being sent outside the country as $25000 to be sent offshore every month at the time when the country is in dire need of foreign exchange.”
“PTI has no trust and due to the division in its ranks Imran Khan was contesting on nine seats in the bi-elections,” she said.