Fact-check: Did Pakistani parliamentarians travel for Hajj using public funds?
Lawmakers, who travelled to Saudi Arabia for Hajj on June 25, paid for their own airfare, an official of the state-owned Pakistan International Airlines , which arranged the special flight, confirmed
Updated Tuesday Jul 04 2023
Pakistani social media users appear to believe the claim that several parliamentarians flew to Saudi Arabia for Hajj on a special chartered flight using public money.
The claim is inaccurate.
Claim
“The PDM government is busy arranging a free flight for parliamentarians to go on Hajj,” wrote a Twitter user on June 25.
The text has been retweeted over 340 times and liked over 900 times, to date.
Similar claims were shared by other Twitter users.
“Dar announces taxpayer paid free flight for Hajj to parliamentarians, so they pray for Pakistan to be free of debt,” another account wrote.
Fact
The lawmakers, who travelled to Saudi Arabia for Hajj on June 25, paid for their own airfare, a senior official of the state-owned Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which arranged the special flight, confirmed.
“PIA has not given any free ticket to anyone for the flight,” Abdullah Hafeez Khan, the spokesperson of the PIA, told Geo Fact Check via messages, “The parliamentarians came and got the tickets from our office. It was paid for. All of them.”
On June 24, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told the National Assembly that the government had arranged a special flight for parliamentarians who wished to travel for Hajj on June 25, for which he added, an agreement had to be made with Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan had launched special flights for pilgrims in the first week of June. The last flight was to depart on June 20. However, some lawmakers, who wanted to leave for Saudi Arabia for the religious ritual, missed their flights due to an ongoing budget session in Pakistan.
“We have arranged a special flight for them [the lawmakers] tomorrow [June 25],” Dar said on the floor of the lower house, “This had to be done in agreement with Saudi authorities as they were not allowing Hajj flights between June 22-23.”
Hina Rabbani Khar, the minister of state for foreign affairs, who was among the travellers on June 25, also told Geo Fact Check via messages that everyone on the flight “paid the full fare”.
Additional reporting by Muhammad Binyameen Iqbal
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