Will have to bow before law: Shahbaz

MUZAFFARGARH/LAHORE: The Punjab Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, on Saturday said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is a constitutional institution which can summon anyone. 

The Bureau had summoned him before and it could summon him again, if it wanted to, he added. “We will bow before the law because only those nations prosper that accept the rule of law.” 

The chief minister was addressing the inauguration ceremony of Tayyab Erdogan Hospital’s expansion in Muzaffargarh, after which the number of beds in the hospital have increased to 380 from 140 at cost of Rs 1.8 billion.

The NAB has summoned Shahbaz in the Punjab Saaf Pani Company case and he is scheduled to appear before the anti-graft body on June 4. Sources within the NAB say a questionnaire has also been sent to Shahbaz who had had earlier appeared before NAB in the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme scam.

Talking about former president Asif Ali Zardari and the PTI Chairman Imran Khan, Shahbaz said talking about Zardari is tantamount to wasting time. “Pakistan wasn’t made for Zardari’s looting and Imran’s sit-ins,” said he remarked. Shahbaz paid rich tribute to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for providing financial assistance for the modern hospital after the devastating floods which created havoc in the area some years ago. Provincial cabinet members and lawmakers Khawaja Salman Rafique, Ahmed Yar Hanjra, Syed Haroon Sultan, Qaswar Karim Langrial and Mian Imran Qureshi as wells senior bureaucrats and others personalities were present on the occasion.

Earlier in the day, Shahbaz inaugurated the CT scan machine, hepatitis filtration clinic and the trauma centre costing Rs 533 million at the DHQ Hospital, Muzaffargarh. Addressing the occasion, Shahbaz said if elected again, the PML-N in the next five years would bring southern Punjab at par with the central parts of the province. He said the Punjab government is committed to providing modern healthcare services to the masses, adding the establishment of a trauma centre in Muzaffargarh is a need of the hour. “This hospital is a model for all the medical institutions and the facilities of teaching hospital, medical college, nursing college and others will also be provided in the future. Patients from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and other areas also come here for treatment,” he noted.

The chief minister Punjab said more than Rs 90 billion have been spent on construction of new roads under the Punjab Chief Minister’s Rural Road Programme during the last five years. “When we came to the power the country was in the grip of energy crisis, but now we have overcome this problem by producing about 11,000 megawatts of electricity,” he noted. “Punjab has installed four gas-powered plants which are producing 5,000-MW of electricity. These projects have been completed at the half the cost of Zardari government,” said Shahbaz. “On the other hand, there is Mr Imran Niazi who followed the politics of sit-ins and allegations and did not execute work of even a single penny. I invite him to visit Muzaffargarh and see the hospital as we have finished the difference between rich and poor.”