Islamabad: Pakistan has defended taking a $1.5 billion aid package from Saudi Arabia, saying it will help overcome the country’s economic crisis.
The opposition has alleged that the Saudi assistance had come at the cost of Pakistan’s independent stand on Syria, Dawn online reported Wednesday.
“The aid has not been received from a smuggler but from a friendly country and it will be used for the welfare of the country and people,” President Mamnoon Hussain was quoted as saying.
He was speaking at the National Press Club here Tuesday.
“The hue and cry is being made on the aid given by a brotherly country,” the president said.
He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted to maintain friendly relations with all neighbouring countries.
The opposition has sharply criticised the move.
“It is the biggest gift in the world’s history and should be included in the Guinness Book of World Records,” said the leader of opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah, while talking to reporters at his Parliament House chamber on Tuesday.
“One has to tell 100 lies to hide one,” he said and urged Prime Minister Sharif to tell the truth in a session of parliament, according to Dawn.
Shah said that contradictory statements coming from different government circles were creating doubts about the official claim that the money had been received as a gift, the paper reported. On one hand, he said, the government claimed to have received such a big amount as a gift and, on the other, a minister had stated that Saudi Arabia had released the money on personal surety of the prime minister. “Gifts are not given on someone’s surety.”
