KOHAT: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Saturday promised to double the country’s revenue from taxation in one year and lower the burden of taxes on poor masses, if voted to power.

Addressing a public meeting in Kohat Model Town here, he said that the income of the government would grow from the current Rs4,000 billion to Rs8,000 billion in his first one year in power. He claimed that he was regarded as an honest person and the overseas Pakistanis and western philanthropists and investors would come and do business here.

“After coming into power, I will strengthen the institutions like NAB, FIA and FBR to control corruption so that nobody dares to skip the law and loot the money collected from poor people. Ten years ago, every child was under debt of Rs35,000 which has surged to Rs165,000 due to corruption of Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif,” he said.

He said that PTI would make an example of the powerful corrupt people if it defeated politicians like Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Khwaja Asif. He said that Ishaq Dar was making false excuses of being sick, but had been hiding in London to avoid arrest.

Imran pledges to double country’s revenue in one year

The PTI chairman recalled that 10 years ago AsifZardari and Nawaz Sharif realised that they should not expose each other’s corruption and went into an agreement not to harm each other. He said that after that they looted the public money with both hands and remained silent over each other’s massive corruption. As a result, they ruled in Pakistan, but lived and had properties in Dubai and London, he said.

Imran Khan said that the secret behind the progress and prosperity of the west was the equality of law there for everyone. He said that unemployment among youth, who were 68 per cent of the total population, was the biggest problem of the country and vowed to address it by promoting technical education of high standard.

He said that he had established Namal University in Mianwali which was imparting modern technical and engineering education. He said that 90 per cent of its graduates got jobs within six months of their graduation. He said a similar university was being established in Haripur for providing technical education.

He urged the people to vote for PTI candidates and said that if they indulged in corruption it would be his responsibility to take them to task. He asked the people to poll votes for the ideology and not keeping in view personalities if they wanted change.

Criticizing Sharif brothers, Imran Khan said that they did the politics by only highlighting the development of Lahore, which was washed down during recent rain and the real Lahore emerged again.

Commenting on the court verdict against Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, he said that ‘the lion’ was now hiding in London and he was not ready to come back and face the courts.

CODE OF CONDUCT: The contesting candidates here have agreed to ensure peaceful elections as per code of conduct, while a comprehensive security plan has been devised for the upcoming general elections.

An official statement issued here said that the district returning officer, Kohat, Mohammad Shoaib, DPO Sohail Khalid and other officers asked the election candidates to follow the code of conduct to the letter.

In this regard, a meeting was held in the district bar room which was also attended by the candidates who were taken into confidence on the security plan for July 25 elections.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2018