FIA summons Shaukat Tarin over leaked audio call regarding IMF programme

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) summoned Tuesday former finance minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shaukat Tarin over his controversial audio calls to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab finance ministers regarding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, Aaj News reported.

In August, two audio tapes surfaced on social and mainstream media, in which a man said to be Tarin could be heard guiding KPK and Punjab’s finance ministers to inform the federal government and the IMF of their inability to commit to a provincial budget surplus in light of the recent floods that have wreaked havoc in Pakistan.

Prior to that, Jhagra had written a letter to the Ministry of Finance conveying the same.

Govt to conduct forensic audit of Tarin's 'audio leaks': law minister

The FIA notice issued to Tarin today said that an inquiry has been initiated against him on the basis of an alleged audio call to Jhagra.

“In it, you are provoking him to write a letter to the federal government on behalf of the KP government that it will not return extra money from the fiscal budget so that interruption may be created between IMF and the Government of Pakistan.”

The FIA also asked Tarin to appear in person at its Cybercrime Reporting Centre in Islamabad on September 21 at 10 am to record a statement in his defence.

“In case of non-appearance, it will be assumed that you have nothing to present or state in your defense and procedure under Section 174 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, will be initiated against you,” the FIA added.

The leaked audio tape

The leaked audio came to the fore on August 29, the day the international lender’s executive board was scheduled to meet for considering Pakistan’s request of releasing the $1.2 billion tranche under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

In the clips, Tarin could be heard telling Punjab Finance Minister Mohsin Leghari and KP’s Taimur Jhagra to tell the federal government that provinces could not post a budget surplus — a key IMF condition.

“We only wanted the provincial finance minister to write to the federal government so “pressure falls on them … 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 of Tarin’s is heard telling Leghari.

When Leghari asks Tarin whether the activity would hurt the state, he 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 said 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”.

Following the audio leak, Tarin rejected the allegations of treason against him, saying that whatever he said was in the national interest.

The former finance minister said that since he had not committed any treason, it was unfair to call him a ‘traitor’, saying that whatever he said was for the sake of 220 million people of the country.

Following the leaked audio, the incumbent government accused PTI of hatching a conspiracy to derail the IMF deal.

“This is shameful. Shaukat Tarin and Taimur Jhagra should resign from politics,” the finance minister Miftah Ismail had said.