'Panama JIT is a joke, a circus': PM Nawaz Sharif

 

LONDON: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday said the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) – tasked by the Supreme Court to carry out the probe pertaining to the Panama Papers case – is a joke in the name of accountability.

Addressing the Pakistani media here immediately after arriving from Saudi Arabia where he performed Umrah, the Prime Minister said the JIT has lost track of its motives, appears to be headed towards the direction the opposition has taken as opposed to what is good for the nation, doesn’t know what it is looking for, and has objectives that have nothing to do with accountability.

Sharif commented that the JIT has no case against him. “They don’t have an allegation against me. Our businesses are spread over 80 years. What the JIT is doing is not accountability but a joke. We are being distracted by its operations and our time wasted.”

'Another beating'

Suggesting that the JIT has been formed as a political project, Sharif mentioned the team's goal is to discredit him through a legal stamp in order to engineer the political landscape in favour of his opponents. "Our political rivals suffered a bitter defeat in the 2013 elections and they are fearful now of another beating in 2018," he said, adding that attempts are afoot to help elements who have no chance to be successful in fair elections.

The head of the state condemned the JIT in most belligerent tone, noting that such “conspiracies” will not be allowed to succeed. Sharif revealed that he asked the JIT members some questions earlier, to which they failed to provide appropriate, justifiable response.

Underscoring the fact that the JIT’s history is in front of everyone and open for everyone to see if it started from Whatsapp appointments, Sharif said, “The kind of people who have appeared as witnesses before the JIT for questioning are our worst political enemies. So you can understand now what the JIT is looking for.”

'What did we get as compensation?'

In an exclusive report, The News investigations editor Ansar Abbasi disclosed that two of the JIT members were chosen via secret Whatsapp calls. The SC later admitted that these appointments were made through Whatsapp and Facetime calls.

“They’re just trying to rattle our private businesses that started in 1937. By their current logic, the next thing they should ask is where did we get the money from to set up our first factory in Lahore," the PM mentioned, slamming the JIT's goals.

"Since they (the JIT members) are starting from 1972 – when we went to Dubai and set up a factory there – and although I was not in politics at that time, I have some questions too," the PM underlined, referring to nationalisation in the 70s.

"Our factory was nationalised and occupied by Bhutto in 1972. My family also lost the Dhaka plant to Bangladesh. So it is our question now, given our money was stolen, that what did we get as compensation? We did not get a single penny for those businesses, which were worth trillions of rupees.”

Talking about his appearance before the JIT, Sharif mentioned how he asked the JIT members whether there was a case of corruption. "They didn’t respond to my question," he said.

'Tamasha'

The JIT is a “trial of my ancestors, myself, and my kids. It is a tamasha (circus), we are witnessing a tamasha," the leader claimed, adding that it is not himself or his family that he is worried about.

"We opened new powerhouses, gave life to the energy sector, helped the stock market move towards a boom recently, and focused on setting up new infrastructure in the country, including roads and motorways,” explained Sharif, stressing that his utmost concern is the country's economic development, especially what has been done in the past four years.

When asked if the JIT was a conspiracy by the same people who sponsored the two dharnas (protests), the PM said it was the first one that delayed the Chinese president from visiting Pakistan.

"Those who claimed that the 2013 elections were rigged were proven wrong in the by-elections. The courts ruled that the elections were fair. Now that they have failed in all their attempts, they are trying to find other ways to sabotage our strategies.

With Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) winning in nearly 95 percent cases in all by-elections, it can be said that "they don’t have support in public. The same frustrated elements are scared that they will lose in 2018", Sharif expressed.

"The real JIT will be held during 2018 elections when Pakistanis will go out to vote to pick the next leader.”

'Umpire's finger'

Taking on the JIT, Sharif challenged it to find a single case of corruption or kickbacks against his government in the ongoing four-year period, his tenure as the Chief Minister of Punjab or the two-time Prime Minister-ship earlier.

Sharif raised objections over the opposition's statements about "raising the umpire’s finger". He alleged his political rivals developed an enmity following the defeat in last elections.

The Prime Minister asked Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leadership to explain “who was the umpire” that Imran Khan referred to throughout the protests four years ago when the latter kept predicting that the umpire will soon start raising fingers.

The premier vowed to eliminate power outages and reaffirmed the doubts over his family’s objections regarding the construction of JIT. He also pointed out that the financial stock market has suffered a great deal due to the political unrest.

Nawaz Sharif asked his detractors to let Pakistan move forward. “Enemies of Pakistan are against its development; it’s a conspiracy. They are the same people who are involved in dirty politics."

Slamming the recent wave of terrorism in Pakistan, Sharif said, "We launched an operation against the terrorists. We broke their backs. We will beat terrorism with the help of our army. We will root out this cancer. We will not let this conspiracy succeed.”