Wednesday, July 08, 2009
By Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: The incomprehensible yawning gap between the precious foreign gifts received by Pervez Musharraf (168) and Shaukat Aziz (736) establishes the ‘wiser’ credentials of Musharraf who, let alone pay peanuts like Aziz, apparently even did away with the formality of reporting his official gifts to the Taushakhana and resultantly no record of such missing gifts was maintained.
Official documents of the Cabinet Division reveal that Shaukat Aziz received 568 gifts more than Musharraf. But Musharraf’s 168 gifts were still valued way more at Rs40 million as compared to Aziz’s Rs25 million for 568 gifts.
Aziz, who took away all the gifts he received, paid Rs2 million to retain them. On the other hand, Musharraf paid Rs5.9 million to retain his gifts. The multi-million rupee question is: how come Musharraf received fewer gifts than his handpicked PM. A former textile tycoon-turned-banker-turned-minister-turned-saviour of victims of national calamity- eagerly offered the shocking reason. In fact he claimed that the former president even advised him against reporting the expensive watches gifted to members of the official delegation during their trip to one of the Gulf countries. “Don’t go to Toshakhana to submit these ordinary gifts of watches. Don’t do that. Nothing will happen”, this minister, pleading anonymity, quoted Musahrraf as saying.
One retired Lt General and a former corps commander Karachi (and for the knowing it would suffice to say that he was not a shaheed), requesting anonymity revealed that he was given an expensive watch by one of the foreign visitors to pass on to Musharraf. He handed over the gift the same evening to the president but was shocked to see that instead of submitting it to ‘Toshakhana’ Musharraf was wearing it the very next day.
The sources said that during the last three years of his tenure, Musharraf undertook 37 foreign trips and visited 80 countries along with his brigade of ministers, secretaries, family members and personal staff. The government spent about Rs1.4billion on these trips including one to USA to launch his autobiography “In the Line of Fire”, which cost the national exchequer Rs270million. But incredibly, Musharraf is reported to have received only two or three gifts during these trips. The sources said in the early years of his presidency, Musharraf used to take many precious gifts to his home after paying a certain amount to retain those gifts. But, gradually he apparently realised that it was a needless bother and a wasteful fiscal exercise so he simply stopped reporting his gifts to avoid documentation and payment of even token money for their retention. All efforts made by the correspondent to obtain a version of former president Musharraf or his spokesman proved futile.
A source close to Musharraf, however, termed the allegation against the former president as baseless. He said Musharraf could not indulge in such an illegal act. The News shall welcome and print a response by Mr Musharraf or his spokesperson-Ed.
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