Imran Khan decides reducing perks of prime minister, president

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided to reduce the perks and privileges of the president and premier by amending the rules through a bill. While showing his commitment for cutting down the expenditures of the national exchequer, PM Imran Khan decided to reduce perks and privileges of the president and prime minister.He contacted his adviser on parliamentary affairs, Dr Babar Awan, and instructed him to pass a law from the parliament to allow reducing the perks of the prime minister. He directed him to formulate legislation for ending VIP expenditures on public funds. Following the directives of the premier, Babar Awan expedited work on the legislation. He told PM Imran Khan that the bill related to the cut in perks and privileges of the state heads will be tabled in the parliament soon that will fulfil the promise of austerity measures by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led federal government. Awan added that the new law will also abolish the discretionary powers of the president and the prime minister of holding camp offices in different cities. President and prime minister would be allowed to possess only one government residency under the new law, he added. The PM’s adviser said that millions of funds had been spent on security, employees, food, internet, telephone services and others from the national treasury after the previous state heads declared many residencies as their camp offices. Babar Awan also presented the previous records of past presidents and prime ministers of Pakistan which revealed the huge spendings of public money for their luxurious lifestyle. According to the government records, one of the former presidents had declared residence of his close relative as President House besides holding camp offices in Lahore and ancestral places. A former president belonging to rural Sindh had declared two President Houses in Larkana Rest House and ‘Bhutto House’ in Ratodero. The records also exposed huge spending on ‘five locations’ declared as Prime Minister Houses by a former premier belonging to South Punjab. A former chief minister had established seven camp houses in Lahore, whereas, an ex-premier had spent Rs830 million only to construct a wall of his residence. Earlier on September 9, it emerged that the present government led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had further reduced the expenses of Prime Minister (PM) House up to 68 per cent under its austerity measures. The expenses of staff and other expenditures of the PM House had visibly reduced from over Rs500 million to Rs310 during the last two years.The numbers of employees at the PM House reduced to only 180 from 522, whereas, the present government spent Rs316 million so far during the two-year period as compared with the last year’s expenditures up to Rs509 million in 2018. NNI