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Thursday March 28, 2024

‘PTI KP MPs, ministers accusing own chief minister of corruption’

By Sabz Ali Tareen
April 07, 2018

CHARSADDA: Awami National Party (ANP) chief Asfandyar Wali on Friday asked the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to take the investigation into corruption in the Billion Tree project to its logical conclusion. He asked Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar to take suo motu notice of the horse-trading in the recent Senate elections and depriving Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of projects under the multi-billion dollars China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

"The CPEC has literally been turned into the China-Punjab Economic Corridor while money was used to buy votes in the elections to the Upper House of Parliament," he told a workers' convention in the Rajjar village in Charsadda.

He lamented that changes were made in the original plan of CPEC to benefit Punjab. The ANP chief criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan for his 'double standards.' He said Imran Khan accused his political opponents of corruption, but his party's lawmakers sold their votes in the Senate elections. "The PTI chief is keeping mum over the involvement of his party's lawmakers in horse-trading in the Senate elections," he added.

Asfandyar Wali said Imran Khan also ignored the corruption of his party's parliamentarians and ministers. He thanked Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for exposing the double standards of Imran Khan in the Senate elections.

He said the PTI lawmakers and ministers were levelling corruption allegations against Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak. "Millions of rupees were embezzled in the Billion Tree Tsunami project while the Rs1.72 billion Bab-e-Peshawar Flyover has developed cracks but the anti-corruption bodies don't bother to probe anomalies in the two projects," he said.

The ANP chief said Imran Khan used to refer to the metro bus project in Punjab as 'Jangla bus' but was now undertaking the Bus Rapid Transit project in Peshawar. "The champion of U-turns took yet another U-turn," he remarked.

He also criticised the Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) chief Aftab Ahmad Sherpao for having been tricked thrice by the PTI chief Imran Khan. Asfandyar Wali recalled that Imran Khan expelled the QWP twice from the provincial coalition government, but Aftab Sherpao again supported the PTI in the Senate election.

He asked the government to merge Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at the earliest and give representation to the tribal areas in the provincial assembly.