Ministers, advisers and special assistants to PM: ‘Foreign visits’ cost kitty Rs70m in year

ISLAMABAD: Amid massive economic crisis and claims of austerity measures, the foreign trips of government ministers, advisers, and special assistants to the prime minister, 99 percent of them belonging to the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led (PML-N) coalition government of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), cost the taxpayers Rs70 million within a short span of one year.

In response to a question asked by Ghous Bux Khan Mahar of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) about the details of the foreign trips undertaken by federal ministers, state ministers, advisers, and special assistants to the prime minister, during 2022, the minister in-charge for Cabinet Division, in a written reply said that the total cost of the foreign trips stood at Rs70 million.

The finance gurus of the PML-N-led PDM government who include Ishaq Dar, Minister for Finance Aisha Ghaus Pasha, the State Minister for Finance and Miftah Ismail, the ex-finance minister of PDM who called it a day when Dar took over as new finance minister on 28 September 2022, are amongst those who lavishly spent the most from the national kitty on their luxurious foreign trips.

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Among the special assistants, Faisal Karim Kundi, who is the SAPM to the prime minister on poverty alleviation, is the one who spent over Rs2.7 million on his foreign trips within a short span of one year.

The total expenditure incurred on Dar’s foreign trip stood at Rs2.45 million, while his deputy Aisha Ghaus Pasha’s total expenditure on the foreign trips was Rs4.1 million. Miftah Ismail who served for about six months as finance minister departed after spending Rs4.57 million.

However, the break-up given by the Cabinet Division about the details of the ministers’ foreign trips, ostensibly missed the details of a large number of foreign trips of Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

It is said that the young foreign minister has so far spent over a billion rupees on his foreign trips to different countries in less than a year.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023