LONDON: Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has denied taking any
plot from National Police Foundation (NPF) as his membership and
allotment of plots in NPF schemes dated back to 1989 and 1990.
According
to sources close to the former Prime Minister, allegations leveled by a
section of media back home that he acquired from the Police Foundation,
Islamabad during his tenor as Prime Minister of Pakistan were simply
baseless.
“No plots were acquired by the Former Prime Minister
from the Police Foundation during his tenor as Prime Minister,” the
sources told Online.
According to the sources, while working as
a banker in Saudi Arabia in the year 1989, Aziz was invited to a
gathering of Overseas Pakistanis in Riyadh. On the occasion the then
Managing Director of the National Police Foundation offered Pakistanis
based in Saudi Arabia to invest in the National Police Foundation
Scheme.
A number of Overseas Pakistanis including Mr. and Mrs.
Shaukat Aziz applied for membership and applied for plots in the
Foundation’s schemes and were accordingly given membership and allotted
plot numbers 1558 and 1559.
According to the sources, on
0ctober 10, 1989 the former Prime Minister and his wife were given
membership to the Foundation’s schemes and were allotted plot numbers
357 and 358 in October1990. Similarly, Mr Aziz made the payments of the
two plots according to schedule of the scheme that concluded years
before he became Prime of the country or held any public office in
Pakistan.
The sources further revealed that the two plots the
former Prime Minister and his wife purchase were located in sector O-9
of National Police Foundation, Rawalpindi. The sources told Online that
the former Prime Minister had also applied for membership and
accordingly allotment of plot in the E-11 housing scheme of the
Foundation in Islamabad in 1990.
Thus the sources quoting the
former Prime Minister said that he had sought membership of these
schemes as ordinary Pakistanis at a time when he was not holding any
public office. Therefore the claim that that these plots were purchased
while he was Prime Minister of Pakistan was patently untrue. Mr. Aziz
assumed office of Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2004 and all these
plots were allotted and paid for long before that date. Online
