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"Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong; they are the ones to attain felicity".
(surah Al-Imran,ayat-104)
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User Name: Iqbal_Hadi_Zaidi
Full Name: Iqbal Hadi Zaidi
User since: 26/Aug/2008
No Of voices: 594
 
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Tender to get bullet proof car for Ashraf

The Post Monitoring

LAHORE: Despite facing deficit that runs in billion, Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) has floated a tender to buy a bullet proof car for the Minister of Water and Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf.

PEPCO sources have said that Raja Pervez Ashraf is entitled to the facility of a bullet-proof vehicle, therefore, the purchase is being made in the name of Peshawar Chief Executive for which payment will be made by the company.

Few days back PEPCO General Manager and Board of Directors raised an objection to the purchase of a second-hand car worth Rs25 million.

The General Manager retired this week and immediately after that a tender was issued again to buy a bullet-proof car by October 12.

The Managing Director PEPCO Tahir Bisharat Cheema on the other hand said while talking to a news channel denied having any knowledge of who had issued the orders to buy the car and for whom. However, he added, that whatever action may be taken will be under the rules and regulations.

He confirmed that a similar offer of buying a bullet-proof car had been rejected on the objections raised by the concerned authorities. I himself had inspected that vehicle, he added.

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                               Bullet proof car, my goodness!

The Post of today Sunday 26th September, 2000 reports that a tender has been floated by Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) to buy a bullet proof car for Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf but why and how, at least I could not understand and, please do enlighten me at least, if not the nation, if you understood the rationale behind it.

 

What a mockery! Are we really a civilized nation? Are we true Muslims? Is Pakistan a rich country? Are our leaders elected? Do we know our priorities? What is more important-a human or a car (forget about bullet proof)? There are so many questions which can be asked here but I very seriously doubt that it will make any tangible.  As a matter of fact, it is more shameful and immoral than criminal even to think what to talk of asking for such an expensive car in a country like Pakistan where per capita income is just US $ 2,600/ pm whereas our arch enemy and neighbor India per capita is US $2,900/ pm. Moreover, at this point of time, when millions of our compatriots have been uprooted due to unprecedented heavy floods and are living under open sky or tent, it is ridiculous to go for such a luxury which cannot be afforded even during normal days what to talk to crisis time.

 

I wish President Asif Ali Zardari in general and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani in particular must take cognizance of the news and take suitable punitive action against the minister, if not termination with with some heavy monetary fine to prove that they are our leaders who care for the masses and not the individuals. The minister is said to be an elected one meaning and that people have voted for him for their own betterment and hoped that their representative will look them after both in crisis and normal days. They blindly believed the representative when at the time of election he solemnly promised loudly and publicly that he will care for them and not self. The innocent, simple and docile voters had hoped that the respected representative will honor his words and ease their life to some extent but now they are ashamed of themselves, not that they have committed a crime or a moral turpitude, simply because the same who promised to look them after has proved quite contra to what he ought to be. Done is done, they voted for him to be MNA and, as the luck had it, he has been chosen as Minister for Power and Electricity.

 

Let us analyze it purely from humanitarian angle. Put your hand, right or left, on your heart and just pose a question to your own self. Had you been a minister, what should have been your approach and attitude, I dare ask? Had you also asked for a bullet proof car and that too in a country where quite a large number of men and women live under poverty? Will you be proud to ask for such a luxurious car when quite often married people are killing their whole family and self simply because they cannot be fed even one meal a day?  Aren’t you a Muslim?

 

I think it is nothing but sheer waste of my time to write any more which in turn will waste your time as well to read and nothing will happen and change. I must commend the minister who being a Raja just limited himself and asked for a bullet proof car only though none on the face of earth could have stopped or deterred him not to ask for a private jet also. I’m afraid that the trend may not wake up the remaining ministers, both full-fledged and state, to ask for the same.  Pakistan zindabad, PPP paindabad.

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With my honest and solem prayers

Sincere Iqbal Hadi Zaidi / Former Diplomat / Kuwait  
 Reply:   Entitlement of Bullet-proof Cars to the VIP in Pakistan!
Replied by(RashidAliS) Replied on (28/Sep/2010)

I would like to revert to Bhai Iqbal Hadi's interesting coverage with rgard to the purchase of bullet proof car. It is assigned to the Minister of Water and Power,Raja Pervez Ashraf for the right or for the wrong reasons. Your guess is as good as mine! There is nothing new under the sun in Pakistan,because business is as usual in such matters.Don't you think so? It would be in the fitness of things to mention here that the statistics show that former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz quietly used 24 bullet-proof Mercedes Benz luxuary cars, woth 1.5 billion, after importing them in the name of his security, before flying out of Pakistan in January 2008, possibly not to return to the country. Shaukat Aziz bought a total of 28 bullet-proof Mercedes Benz, worth Rs. 1.8 billion, and kept 24 of them for his personal use, while three Mercedes Benz were given to his master ... former President General Pervez Musharraf. This shocking information about the use of such a huge number of bullet-proof vehicles (protected Mercedes Benz models 2005) by the Prime Minister Secretariat of Shaukat Aziz were dispatched to the National Assembly after details of the purchase of total 59 car, including 28 bullet-proof cars, worth Rs. 2 billion by the former government, were sought by MNA Humair Khan Rokhri. A secret list of distribution of these imported bullet-proof cars revealed that out of 28, at present, 18 bullet-proof cars were being used by high-profile political personalities of the country on the order of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in the name of their security, including leaders of opposition parties. The extraordinary list disclosed that following big guns of the country were using these bullet-proof cars: Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, Senate Chairman Farooq Naek, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen. Tariq Majid, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, former acting Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Balochistan Chief Minister Raisani, NWFP Prime Minister Haider Hoti, former minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, National Assmbly Speaker Dr. Fehmida Mirza, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, MNA Asfandyar Yar Wli Khan and the NWFP Assembly speaker. It would be a wishful thinking to have corruption-proof political parties in our God-gifted but developing country now or in the near future!!! Naturally, it is the moral duty of all brave writers like Bhai Iqbal Hadi to expose the evils and wrong doing of the politicians to the nation. Sincere writers should have no fear to tell the truth to the nation. Because if we don't write about the shortcomings of our elected government to the people of Pakistan. Who would do it for them. Nevertheless, it is not a bad idea that all ministers in Pakistan should import and pay for their own personal bullet-proof cars in future. It is rather strange that these politicians lives are threatened by those people, who have elected them to represent them by serving the country and its inhabitants sincerely in all walks of life! Regretfully, Pakistan is plagued by corruption, self-interest, nepotism at this stage. These so-called servants of the nation should establish law and order to stabilize Pakistan, instead of exposing the country to anarchy, chaos and Sectarian pollitics! Blaming these politicians is a waste of time and energy.We should get rid of them in the next democratic election. We should educate the hard working and honest people of Pakistan, who could wipe out and eradicate the evil roots of corruption in the Civil and Military Establishments once and for all! I am afraid, as long as there is illiteracy, ignorance among the masses, there would be no real democracy of the people, for the people and by the people of Pakistan! Down with leaders like Sharif Nawaz and Zardari. LONG LIVE PAKISTAN!!! With humble prayers and salaams to all, Sincerely, SRA SHAH, Vroomshoop (THE NETHRLANDS)
 
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