Federal govt decides to make Thoshakhana gifts pubic

Islamabad: The federal cabinet on Tuesday nodded in affirmative to make the record of Toshakhana gifts, received over the past two decades, as public.

The latest reports said that the Toshakhana gifts received over the past two decades would be displayed on the Cabinet Division’s website.

The Federal Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the decision earlier today.

Just a day before Imran Khan criticized  the coalition government in the centre for not making Toshakhana gifts public.

The PTI Chief had said that the coalition government wanted to cover Nawaz Sharif and Zardari who illegally received gifts from Toshakhana.

It may also be mentioned here that the Lahore High Court last week was informed that the federal government would design a policy regarding Toshakhana gifts because disclosure of the details could cause unnecessary media hype and publicity.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last year in June had formed a ministerial committee to redesign the Toshakhana policy. Ministers of defence, law and commerce were included in the committee besides inclusion secretaries of finance, information and foreign affairs. The committee finalised recommendations just in a month and submitted a report to the prime minister office.

A local citizen, Munir Ahmed, had moved a petition to the LHC through his counsel and submitted that Thoshakhana gifts received by different leaders since 1947 till date were not being disclosed. He said it was right of the public to know that who the recipients of the gifts were.  He asked the court to direct the authorities concerned to make the recipients public so they could know the reality.

The issue became part of common discussion when former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was targeted for retaining gifts during his tenure.