Pervez Khattak says maximum relief being given to masses

NOWSHERA: Federal Minister for Defence Pervez Khattak said on Thursday that Prime Minister Imran Khan was striving to give maximum relief to the masses despite a challenging economic situation created by the coronavirus pandemic.

He was speaking at a press conference at Manki Sharif near here. Provincial Minister for Irrigation Liaqat Khattak, Chairman, National Assembly Standing Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Dr Imran Khattak, and others were also present on the occasion. Pervez Khattak said the Covid-19 had crippled the economy of almost all the countries besides bringing deaths and affecting business activities at the global level.

He said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government was utilizing all the available resources for the welfare of the people by sharing their burden through various programmes during the economic meltdown. Coming down hard on the Jamaat-e-Islami, the defence minister said that, in fact, they staged the sit-in in Nowshera against the Customs Squad, which had seized foreign cloth and a vehicle from the JI leader. He said that JI provincial chief Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan visited the offices of Customs thrice to get the seized foreign cloth and the vehicle back but he failed. “They (JI ministers) should tell how much corruption was committed as their party was an ally of my previous provincial government,” the defence minister questioned while replying to corruption allegations levelled against him.

He said that the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project was executed through the Peshawar Development Authority (PDA), which was then working under minister Inayatullah Khan who was from the JI. About the allegations of corruption levelled by the JI in the BRT, he believed, was actually a charge-sheet by the JI against its own minister, who enjoyed the luxurious life in the PTI tenure.

He questioned why the JI had kept a mum over corruption committed in the BRT or other projects carried out by the government of allied parties at that time. “They should have raised the issue of corruption when they were in government or should have at least quit the cabinet to set an example of high moral values at that time”, he added. The defence minister termed the JI recent sit-in at the Shobra Chowk in his home district a drama, saying the party even could not gather a few hundred people from Nowshera, Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan and Swabi and elsewhere from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The masses, he said, knew the JI and other parties well, which had done nothing for the welfare of the people and country and only amassed wealth. He said that Imran Khan was the first prime minister who had laid hand on the sugar and flour mafias and even not spared people of his own party. Pervez Khattak also brushed aside allegations of corruption in Malam Jabba land project and said that no illegal act had been committed in contract with the company concerned.

“Our hands are clean and we are ready to offer ourselves for accountability by any department or agency,” concluded the defence minister.