HUB, LASBELA: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday said PPP wants Balochistan to have financial independence and it wants them to have the right to govern themselves.
“You get to have the first say on all your resources and the first right to reap all benefits of CPEC and employment opportunities,” Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told a rally in Hub tehsil of Lasbela district.
Expressing commitment towards a decentralised government, the PPP chief said that within two years of taking office, the party introduced the 18th Amendment safeguarding the right of the provinces to govern themselves.
Bilawal censured the federal government over dismal conditions in Balochistan, saying the government failed to give Balochistan its due financial share in the National Finance Commission (NFC) Awards over the period of five years.
“The PML-N government did not treat Balochistan any better than a colony. The CPEC’s western project was ignored to affect Balochistan. Your people were also abducted just as ours. Justice was not served to you just like it was not served to us”, he went on to criticise the PML-N government.
He accused the government of spending at least 90 per cent of the NFC funds in Punjab and added that the PML-N government politicised the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which the PPP had signed only to benefit the local residents.
Commenting on the so-called trickledown effect of the CPEC, Bilawal questioned why the city of Gwadar still lacks potable water as he termed the CPEC a project fallen to personal and political gains.
Touting his party, the PPP chief said the party empowered at least 950,000 women living in abject poverty in Balochistan via the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).
He further said that the PPP-led government provided resources to Balochistan from the national exchequer and the Thar Coal project, introduced by his party, is providing the most benefit to locals. “We will fight democratically against exploitative forces,” Bilawal said.
The PPP chief also bashed former president Pervez Musharraf, as he called out the “dictator for fuelling a fire of hatred” in the province. He said the PPP democraticised much of the province that had been taken over during the [Musharraf’s] military rule. “We got rid of cantonments’ encroachments and returned you your rightful land,” Bilawal added.
