MULTAN City News

Call to take action against Agri Dept corrupt officials

From Our Correspondent

MULTAN: National Labor Alliance chairman Ghazi Ahmad Hassan Khokhar has demanded the government take action against those Agriculture Department officials who were allegedly involved in corruption.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, NLA chairman Ghazi Ahmad Hassan Khokhar alleged that the Punjab Pest Warning officials were involved in massive corruption and patronising adulterated pesticide mafia across the province particularly in cotton zone. He alleged that not a single pesticide owner was arrested so called during an operation against adulteration. Pesticide owners were neither be arrested nor convicted in courts, he lamented. He alleged that agriculture research budget was being embezzled at large scale. He accused the Agriculture Department officers of threatening him of dire consequences if he exposes their alleged corruption. He said that Pakistan was a pure agriculture country and its national growth depends upon progress in agriculture but all agriculture wings were going to decline due to ineligibility and alleged corruption in the department. The Agriculture Department was going to decline instead making progress in the field, he feared. The agriculture bosses were presenting fictitious statistics to hide their corruption, he alleged. He demanded the government take action against the Pest Warning and Quality Control corrupt officials. When contacted, Punjab Pest and Quality Control Multan Region Director Chaudhry Farooq Ahmad denied all allegations of poor performance and corruption in the department. He said that all allegations were baseless. He said that the Pest Warning had registered 130 FIRs against adulteration mafia in September. The Pest Warning had recovered adulterated pesticide worth Rs 25 million from cotton zone, he added.