PTI delaying KP budget owing to allegations of corruption: ANP leader

PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) Central General Secretary and former Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain alleged that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is trying to delay the provincial budget owing to allegations of corruption against 20 of its lawmakers by party chief Imran Khan.

He said the drama staged by the PTI leadership in order to avoid presenting its sixth budget by terming it pre-poll rigging stood exposed as they knew that their party came to power on the back of slogans of ‘change’ but had lost its majority in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly after Imran Khan accused 20 of his own members of provincial assembly (MPAs) for selling their votes during Senate elections.

Talking to media persons, he said that PTI would not be allowed to delay the budget for fiscal 2018-19 and was bound to present it after the unveiling of the federal government’s budget by the end of this month.

“If the PTI government fails to present the budget, it would be a great injustice to people of the province,” he remarked.

He further said the people of KP could not be deprived of their rights anymore. Allegations leveled by the PTI chief were of a serious nature and needed thorough investigation, he added.

He demanded an imposition of a life ban on those lawmakers who were found guilty of selling their votes during the recently held Senate elections. He said it would have been better if Imran Khan had presented solid proofs before the nation against the accused lawmakers.

Mian Iftikhar said that PTI had bulldozed green belts, monuments, bridges and roads in Peshawar that were constructed with a cost of billions of rupees of taxpayers’ money during the last four years and had started work on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project when it had almost completed its term.

“The traffic and environmental mess have made the lives of the people in the provincial capital miserable due to the ill-planned construction of BRT,” he said, adding that the PTI government was unlikely to complete the project during its tenure.

He also said that KP Chief Minister (CM) Pervez Khattak should take a fresh vote of confidence to prove that his party still enjoyed a majority in the provincial assembly.

He said the people of KP were facing many problems due to the negative policies of PTI, while adding that the so-called slogans of change and introducing reforms in social sectors had evaporated into thin air following the recent remarks of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar during his recent visit to Peshawar.

The chief justice had expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the KP government in the social sector, including health, education and provision of potable water, and regretted that not even a single standard hospital or school had been set up in the provincial capital by the PTI government during the last five years.

The ANP leader said that people could not be deceived anymore by PTI’s catchy slogans. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had taken serious notice of corruption in PTI’s Billion Tree Tsunami project and illegal recruitments in KP Ehtesab Commission.

He said PTI had made the Ehtesab Commission toothless by making unnecessary amendments in its laws, which resulted in shattering the confidence of the masses in the accountability system promoted by PTI. “The commission has become a bitter pill for the PTI to swallow,” he concluded.