PM Imran mulls introducing law to divert recovered black money to education in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD -- Prime Minister Imran Khan said Thursday he was mulling introducing a law to divert recovered black money towards education.

PM Imran Khan - while addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Pak-Austria Fachhochschule Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (PAF-IAST) at Mang in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Haripur city - said he was pondering passing a law to divert money brought in from "corrupt individuals" by the government's asset recovery unit towards education.

"The more we invest in education, the more secure our children and country's future will be," the premier said, acknowledging that his government had failed to "focus on education" since it came to power.

The failure of the ruling party's focus on education, he continued, was due to a "game of survival" it faced after coming into power.

The PTI regime's first year was spent on "stabilising the economy" while the coronavirus pandemic intervened in the second year, he noted. "Now, my attempt is that we as a nation need to decide that wherever we save money from, we divert it to education," he said.

PM Imran added that Pakistan needed to move towards becoming a knowledge economy in order to progress and "free our minds" from colonialism - something that diverted the country from its path 15-20 years after the independence in 1947.

"The dependency syndrome was put on us [after independence]," the prime minister said. Reminiscing about his cricketing days, he shared an example wherein his seniors told the team during his first tour to England that their tour would be a "big success" if they lost "respectfully".

"There was so much complex that we cannot win against them," the premier recalled, adding that a similar "mindset was everywhere".

The premier also wondered aloud why Pakistan did not produce its own scientists or inventions and why did not have technological juggernauts such as Facebook and Microsoft - which are bigger than the country's economy.

"That's because the [West] have opted for...

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