–Billions of corruption in Saaf Pani Company
LAHORE: Leader of the opposition in Punjab Assembly Mian Mehmood ur Rasheed accused the Shahbaz Sharif-led Punjab government of corruption of billions in the Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC) and said that the Punjab chapter of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will expose the mega corruption scams of the government on a regular basis.
“The PSPC was established in 2014 with a hefty amount of Rs 130 billion and it was given a task to provide clean drinking water to the people of Punjab in three years. Shahbaz Sharif suddenly came out of slumber just three months ago and accused the PSPC of incompetence and therefore suspended the whole hierarchy of the company and we were told that the budget of the company will now be ballooned to Rs 190 billion,” Rasheed said, while talking to a group of journalists on Monday.
He further added that the Punjab government installed 116 water filtration plants in the last one year, each plant installed at a cost of Rs 12 million. “Only 16 plants are functional and provide clean drinking water as 60 plants are closed and the remaining 40 plants provide unhygienic water,” Rasheed said, while challenging Shahbaz Sharif to visit these plants with him.
He was of the view that kickbacks worth billions of rupees were received in these filtration plants as Jamaat-e-Islami and certain NGOs have installed the same plants at a cost of Rs 2 million each. All the financial embezzlements in the filtration plants are being done at the behest of the CM who is also a director of the Punjab Saaf Pani Company, he added.
Mehmood revealed that a Chinese company named Sinohydro was willing to install the filtration plants at 40 percent lesser rates and the company had also qualified the bidding process. But then the whole process was scrapped issuing a new tender for the project on the behest of the brother of a powerful minister who has high stakes in the project.
Rasheed also said that Sharif brothers received kickbacks in the Motorway project during 1990-91 and the investigative officers probing the scam were removed from their offices by the Sharifs. “The Chief Minister Punjab claims that there is no corruption in Punjab but all these projects are exposing him as corruption is being done directly under the nose of Shahbaz Sharif,” Rasheed claimed. He was of the view that PTI will now regularly expose the scams of Punjab government.
Talking about the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Panama Papers, Rasheed said that PTI will stand by the JIT with full force and it will come on roads if the ruling party does not stop maligning the members of JIT. “The members of JIT are being made controversial under an organized conspiracy hatched by the PML-N and PTI will foil all the conspiracies against the JIT,” he said.
According to Rasheed, PTI will launch a rigorous movement against the rulers after Eid in the wake of Panama Papers. PTI’s central leader Dr. Yasmin Rashid, MPAs Mian Aslam Iqbal and Shoaib Siddiqui were also present on the occasion.
