ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan welcomed Supreme Court’s take on personal glorification of political leaders in government advertisements on Tuesday.
In a tweet, the PTI leader said, “We welcome the CJ probe into adverts where [Shehbaz Sharif] was told to return the taxpayers’ money he spent on personal publicity. Nowhere in the world is taxpayer money used so shamelessly for personal publicity as in Pakistan. No wonder people are reluctant to pay their taxes.”
Earlier on Feb 28, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had taken suo moto notice of the trend of self promoting campaigns by the leaders of provinces of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pkhtunkhwa.
In the hearing on March 12, Monday, CJ demanded an inquiry into how many advertisements were printed and broadcasted with the pictures of Khyber Pkhtunkhwa (KP) chief minister and party leader Imran Khan by their government.
The court also asked for provincial government’s one-year record to determine if pictures of political leaders were printed on government ads and remarked that public money was being spent on these advertisements.
On March 10, hearing a similar case of printing the pictures of Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif on laptops distributed under the provincial government’s scheme, the chief Justice summoned the Punjab Chief Secretary to submit a detailed report on the use of taxpayers’ money for self-projection.
“Why is Punjab CM’s picture being printed on laptops purchased with the taxpayers’ money,” commented the chief justice.
