Is Nawaz Sharif naive, silly, careless or corrupt? I mean, he is over 60 years old now, third time Prime Minister, has spent most of his adult life in the corridors of power and intrigue and he doesn’t have the sense still what happens when you involve people with seedy pasts in your mega deal at government level? At this point in time, when enemies of PML-N government which are spearheaded by Imran Khan and ARY News channel are hungry for something scandalous from Islamabad or Lahore; the participation of notorious Saifur Rehman in meetings of ministry of water and power at the highest level are simply strange, alarming and absurd. ARY News channel and its anchors like Kashif Abbassi will gleefully do their job of defaming government as they are licking their wounds after failing to dislodge government in the wake of London Plan. For them, this is a God sent gift and they are fully exploiting it.
And who wouldn’t. Out of the blue, Saifur Rehman has emerged as investor by using a Qatari company Al Murqab which doesn’t have a website. ARY is brandishing a signed official agreement with 1% of commission going to Saifur Rehman. That all sounds very fishy. This may very well be the case that there is no corruption in it and Saifur Rehman is not acting as frontman of Nawaz Sharif, but his bad reputation, tainted image and seedy past cannot be forgotten. Why on Earth would Nawaz Sharif even allow such a character near his government? No matter who urgent the power crisis is, or how much investment they are bringing; government could have told the company to get rid of Saifur Rehman to keep the matters clean, transparent and taint-free. Its not a rocket science, and one can only wonder and marvel at the incompetency or lethargy of PML-N regime in this matter. I have seen Prime Minister’s secretary Fawad and then Khawaja Asif, the minister of power to justify and explain this in Kashif Abbasi talk show Off the Record but they really couldn’t hit it off the park. The truth is that PMLN cant justify Saifur Rehman, no matter what.