Mallika Dureja
Islamabad, Pakistan: The Nation said that Imran Khan helicopter rides as the former prime minister of Pakistan and leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party cost the country $1 billion.
Khan’s helicopter rides while he was in office have drawn attention. The details of the costs were given to the Pakistani Senate.
The Nation said that Khan’s VVIP helicopter rides cost around one billion rupees and were done at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office from 2019 to 2021.
In a written response to the Senate, the federal government said that, according to the information given by the Cabinet Division, the PM’s Office told the 6 Aviation Squadron to spend 946.3 million on VVIP helicopter missions from 2019 to 2021, when Imran Khan was the country’s prime minister.
Before this, the government had told the upper house that Khan took the official helicopter from his home in Bani Gala, Islamabad, to PM House for 1,579.8 hours from 2019 to March 2022.
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The Nation said that the national treasury paid for these trips to the tune of 434.43 million.
The government revealed the costs of camp offices and said that former prime ministers had spent a total of 26 million from official funds on camp offices since 2008. During his time as prime minister, from March 2008 to June 2012, Yousuf Raza Gilani had three camp offices. Two of them were in Lahore, and the other was in his hometown of Multan. Together, they cost 10.8 million rupees.
The current Speaker of the National Assembly, Raja Pervez Ashraf, had one camp office on Chakwal Road that cost 5.5 million while he was in office from June 2012 to March 2013.
The Nation said that Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and a former prime minister, had his camp office at his home in Jati Umra, Lahore, from June 2013 to July 2017. This cost 4.5 million.
His successor, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, was prime minister from August 2017 to March 2018. He had his camp office at his home in Islamabad. It cost the exchequer 5.2 million.
Notably, Pakistan is on the verge of economic chaos, but the political class is still using exchequer money to move around, even though the country has a lot of debt.
