Islamabad, July 06: Former president Pervez Musharraf, has taken away 168 expensive gifts worth about Rs40 million at the pitifully low official price, given by top foreign dignitaries along with him, mostly free of cost, before leaving Pakistan to settle in London, said a news report.
However, Musharraf insists that he has not moved abroad permanently and is only there for the convenience of his lecture tour.
Musharraf did not surrender even a single gift with the Toshakhana (government’s depository for these gifted items) and kept all of them, irrespective of their value, after getting the expensive items underpriced.
True to his famous zero-tolerance policy to many things and persons, the former dictator clearly had zero-tolerance also for the concept of letting the state keep the state gifts and either kept most free of cost or by paying laughable pittance prices.
Musharraf even set a new record by retaining a gift of only Rs 15 instead of depositing it with the Toshakhana. Thus, now Shaukat Aziz appears more respectable to us, who had priced a gift given by the governor of Nepal at Rs 25, and then retained it free of cost.
–Agencies–