LAHORE: Punjab Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan has said all those will be held accountable who looted the country during the past 10 years, and he will register a case against Hamza Shahbaz Sharif (for levelling baseless allegations against him).
Talking to the media outside Punjab Assembly, he said why the father of Hamza Shahbaz, who was then chief minister of Punjab, took no action against him and registered cases against him during his 10 years in office if he (Aleem) had grabbed any lands. He castigated Hamza, the opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, for levelling baseless allegations against him and Speaker Pervaiz Elahi. He challenged Hamza to bring any case against him in this regard or show to the media the land he was blaming him for.
The minister said he would bring to the fore all FIRs registered over land-grabbing in Lahore during the past 10 years to expose the lies of Hamza. Aleem Khan claimed that every company in the province had a big scandal and so far only two cases have been opened and the Sharif family started making hue and cry. He said more scams would surface in the coming days.
Abdul Aleem Khan said that from Solid Waste Management to Orange Line Metro Train in the name of mega projects national exchequer was plundered. He said everyone would have to be answerable for that they had done in the past.
The senior minister said the past government had bankrupted the Punjab province and there was no money to give subsidy or run developmental projects while cheques for Rs80 billion had bounced.
To a question, he said that opposition could not continue protest even for half an hour, as it was not so easy to protest. He challenged the PML-N to protest even for 126 hours as compare to 126 days of the PTI’s protest, and they would be given full assistance.
He said that each power project was also full of corruption and everywhere, including Bhikhi project, over payments were made for purchasing machinery only for commission. He said that no tender, bidding or pre-qualification was undertaken before any project, and the Orange Line train project also had the same story.
About a news item published in the media, the minister said a housing society namely Park Enclave in Islamabad is the project of CDA and not of his company. He said the media did not reflect the true picture in this regard.
He alleged that some elements with vested interests were running campaigns against him and the PML-N was leading them. To a query, he said the present local government system in Punjab had nothing to deliver. The government is trying to introduce such a system which had full financial and administrative powers, and could solve the people’s problems at the local level.
