ISLAMABAD- Prime Minister Imran Khan has said, electronic voting was essential to ensure transparency in next general election and directed the authorities concerned to prepare a feasibility report of the process on priority.
Chairing the meeting of federal cabinet , the Prime Minister said all necessary actions would be taken to end corruption in elections as witnessed in the recent Senate polls.
“We want next general election to be fair and transparent and thus want to initiate the e-voting process well ahead of time,” he said.
The Prime Minister also directed to workout the details for purchase of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), adding that he would also get regular updates on the progress of project. He said introduction of online voting for overseas Pakistanis was also on priority.
Imran Khan said the Senate elections exposed that how political leaders used money to buy votes. He said politicians including Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif through money-laundering transferred the national wealth to their bank accounts abroad.
He mentioned a report of Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI) which revealed that that $1 trillion was taken out each year from the poor countries to developed States.
Presently, he said, $7 trillion of the stolen assets was parked in these safe havens causing irreparable loss of developing countries such as Pakistan. The Prime Minister said money-laundering severely weakened a country’s institutions.
He said in past tenures, the ruling parties launched the projects with mega kickbacks and resultantly the common man paid the price in shape of inflation and heavy loans.
“Such politicians normalize corruption in a society, bribe media houses and removes checks and balances to ease their money-laundering chain,” he said, adding that a society which set such standards of corruption had an ethical downfall, adding that ‘a nation gets destroyed when it loses the ability to ensure socio-economic justice’.
