Rs8.4m generators for Sharifs, as nation bears load-shedding

Author: Hassan Naqvi and Manik Aftab

LAHORE: At a time when Pakistan is passing through a period of energy crisis and the government is making promises it’ll overcome electricity shortfall in December 2017, generators amounting to Rs 8.4 million have been installed at homes of the Sharif family.

Reliable sources told Daily Times that the generators were installed at 96-H and 180-H Model Town, the private properties of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shahbaz.

The Punjab chief minister continues to reiterate that the provincial government will overcome energy crisis. “Mostly Punjab is suffering badly from the darkness while drama has been staged on the name of rental power project,” the CM had said in his Harappa address on April 19, 2012.

One of the most powerful families in Pakistan – according to sources – with properties both home and abroad, the Sharif family owns Ittefaq Group, a multibillion dollar steel conglomerate.

The Panama revelations had also revealed offshore companies of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s children: Maryam Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz and Hasan Nawaz.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on Wednesday had said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government was using prolonged load-shedding as a tool to victimise the people of Sindh.

Major opposition parties are also concerned about the country being run without Nawaz Sharif in the prime minister’s chair. The head of the Sharif family is in London following open-heart surgery.

Sources say the prime minister will return a day before Eidul Fitr; he will celebrate the occasion with his family at his Jati Umra residence in Raiwind, and resume his duties as the head of the government.