Punjab govt to curtail NAB’s powers: Sanaullah

• Law minister says sorry over Imran’s remarks against civil servants

• Says not a single plot given to bureaucrats since 1998

LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah on Saturday said the provincial government will formulate a legislation to curtail the powers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) after the “unlawful” arrest of the Lahore Development Authority’s former director general Ahad Cheema.

“Such conduct of the bureau would be raised in the assembly’ session as the government won’t tolerate this sort of behaviour,” said Sanaullah as he addressed a presser in a rebuttal to the press conference of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan in which the latter hurled accusations at the civil servants.

Throwing his weight behind the powerful bureaucracy of Punjab, Sana termed Ahad Cheema innocent and said that the reservations of bureaucrats against the arrest of Cheema were genuine. He also sought an apology from the civil servants, saying he was sorry that the PTI chief dragged them into his conflict with the Sharif family.

“It is incomprehensible that persons like Imran Khan got popularity despite being a habitual liar,” Sana said, adding that Imran has been hurling allegations against the government of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) for the last four years but he miserably failed to prove even his single allegation of corruption against the provincial government.

“Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Fawad Hassan Fawad, Secretary to Chief Minister Imdadullah Bosal, Intelligence Bureau DG Aftab Sultan and Additional Chief Secretary Umar Rasool are dedicated civil servants who have spent their lives in public service,” the law minister said, adding that it was regrettable that their careers were being questioned by the “shameless PTI chief”.

Unfortunately, such a person got popularity who was immodest, Rana Sanaullah said adding that there was a level of opposition in politics all over the world but the type of language the PTI chairman today used against civil officers was condemnable.

“The Punjab government has not allocated even a single plot to the bureaucrats as Shahbaz Sharif himself abolished the perk during his first stint as the CM in 1998,” he said and dared Imran Khan to hold another presser in response if he has any proof in this regard.

Calling out the PTI chief for never substantiating his claims, he said that Imran Khan used to say that Punjab Metro Bus project was built at a cost of 70 billion rupees despite the fact that CM Punjab had repeatedly said that the project was completed with a cost of just 29 billion, adding that “we [the government] even provided all the record to the Transparency International and got validation of our claim from the agency”.

Imran Khan is in habit of levelling allegations and always tried to mislead people, he concluded.