With the cabinet expansion taking place in Balochistan on Monday, the ruling coalition is all set to launch a major and phased drive against corruption under the guidance of Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch.
In order to purge the government machinery of Balochistan of the corrupt mafia, the ruling coalition comprising mainly Baloch and Pashtun nationalists, has taken a major decision to launch a major cleansing operation.
In an exclusive interview with PakistanToday, Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) Vice President and Member of National Assembly from Quetta, Abdul Qahar Wadan said that after identifying the corrupt elements, a cleansing operation would be launched.
“One thing is clear that the government will not tolerate corrupt mafia and terrorists will also be wiped out from the province,” said Mr Qahar Wadan.
“We would not doll out money to lawmakers of Balochistan in the name of “development funds” as was the practice under former chief minister Raisani. Rather, a transparent mechanism would be adopted to allocate development funds through public tenders for development projects across the province,” he added.
The PkMAP leader said that the Balochistan government had taken the decision in line with the vision and commitment of Mahmood Khan Achakzai, Dr Abdul Malik Baloch and other party leaders. He was of the view that the previous government of Sardar Aslam Raisani had set new records of misuse of public funds and corruption by giving all the lawmakers billions of rupees in the name of development funds which had badly affected the governance system and rampant corrupt practices had resulted in worst law and order situation whereas the people of Quetta had been left to target killers, sectarian outfits and extortion mafia gangs.
“The Balochistan government has decided to get rid of the previous regime’s negative precedent of not implementing Public Sector Development Projects (PSDP) and rather bribing the lawmakers by giving billions of rupees in name of development funds. Now, it has been decided that the funds would be used under a transparent mechanism and no fund would be allocated to Balochistan Development Authority (BDA) which had been allocated 60 percent of the budget by previous government,” he said and added that the people would soon witness the change which is taking place under the nationalist leadership.
Qahar Wadan said that under the previous government, Hasnain Construction Company had been allotted a contract to construct Quetta-Chaman Road. However, he alleged that the construction company paid bribes to the previous rulers and left the project halfway which helped the gangsters unleash an era of loot and plunder on the Quetta-Chaman Highway.
He said that the USAID had provided funding of Rs 9.5 billion to construct Quetta-Chaman Highway which would be completed in record 1.5 years. He said Rs 5 billion have been released and work would be started soon. He added that his party would provide security to the contractors.
“We have already provided security alongside Quetta-Chaman highway and no incident of abduction of people or vehicles is taking place now. Previous government itself was responsible for massive law and order situation but now times have changed and now the true servants of the people have taken over the reigns,” he added.
Asked about creation of Saraiki province, Qahar, who has also served as deputy speaker Balochistan Assembly, said that his party in principle supported creation of a Saraiki province as this would be returning the Saraiki people their stolen identity and would be a timely step to heal their decades-old wounds.
He said this step was also in line with the 1940 resolution which had promised returning identity to five major nations and not provinces. Calling for a new social contract in the country based on the 1940 resolution, Qahar Wadan said this step would enable the five major nations including Punjabis, Pashtoons, Saraikis, Baloch and Sindhis revive their cultural and historic identity with rights on their natural resources and revenues.
Responding to a query, Qahar said that the time was right the military leadership stopped meddling into the civilian matters and only this could take the country out of multiple crises.
“We are not against the armed forces, rather we fully support a professional army. However, my leadership feels that successive military takeovers have badly affected the confidence between military and civilian leadership. But if military stops intervention into civilian matters, things would improve,” he concluded.