CM Buzdar pays Multan visit without protocol

MULTAN: Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar paid a surprise visit to Multan city without any protocol late Wednesday night and expressed serious annoyance at poor cleanliness conditions and non-installation of streetlights.

He suspended Solid Waste Management Company's deputy manager Osman Khurshid and in-charge streetlights Muhammad Nafis Ahmed over their failure to keep the city clean and install streetlights. The CM ordered for an inquiry and appointed Multan Metropolitan Corporation chief officer as the inquiry officer. He expressed displeasure at poor cleanliness conditions at Bosan Road, Multan Public School Road and other areas. He also called an explanation from Waste Management Company chief executive officer (CEO) and directed him to submit his written reply in the next two days over poor cleanliness.

Even the Multan city administration remained unaware of chief minister’s visit.

The CM spent a very busy day in Multan and met South Punjab Additional Chief Secretary Zahid Akhtar Zaman and other secretaries. He met delegations of industrialists, parliamentarians, PTI office-bearers, and a lawyer delegation. He reviewed the pace of development work at Nishtar Hospital phase-II.

The CM laid down foundation-stone of new campus of University of Engineering and Technology (UET) at Laar on Bahawalpur over an area of 10 kanals. He also laid the foundation-stone of voice-controlled special persons' wheelchair manufacturing unit. He planted a sapling at Pelican Avenue.

CM Buzdar also visited District Jail Multan, and asked inmates about their problems. He expressed his anger on non-provision of basic facilities to prisoners under the law. On his orders, jail superintendent Chaudhry Arshad Warraich was suspended.

The chief minister also took notice of a girl committing suicide in Bahawalpur after she was raped by a man at gunpoint, and the police refused registration of a case against the attacker. He sought a report from Regional Police Office (RPO) Bahawalpur.

On Thursday, the chief minister laid foundation-stone of south Punjab administrative secretariat on a 500-kanal piece of land at Mattital Road here.

Addressing the ceremony as well as a lawyer convention at Multan Circuit House, he said the administrative secretariat design had been approved while offices, government officer residences (GOR), chief minister’s office, a mosque and other necessary facilities would be provided at the secretariat.

An urban forest would be grown at the administrative secretariat as well, he said adding, "The building would consist of five stories, and no person would have to travel to Lahore for his secretariat related tasks now.”

Buzdar said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government lacked [two-thirds] majority in assembly to create the south Punjab province. However, the government had taken all possible steps for establishment of the south Punjab administrative secretariat as a first step towards creation of the province, the CM added. He said solution to problems of south Punjab people would be addressed locally.

He also announced establishment of a gymkhana club, where indoor games, sports, guest rooms, swimming pool, shooting club and riding club would be established. He also directed the departments and the authorities concerned for early completion of Nishtar Hospital phase-II. Rs5 billion are being spent on Nishtar phase-II where 500 beds would be provided in the first phase, Buzdar said. The chief minister also met parliamentarians and ordered the administration to address their complaints on priority basis.

He also reviewed Multan development schemes. He said the past governments shifted south Punjab development budgets to other projects, keeping people of the region backward. He said the past rulers deceived people of south Punjab in the name of development, while the PTI government was developing south Punjab.

Separately, industrialist Khwaja Jalaluddin Roomi met the chief minister and presented Rs5 million cheque for issuing Qarz-e-Hasna to people of Shujabad and Jalalpur Pirwala. The amount would be spent on releasing mark-up free loans to youth for business.

Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat, Punjab Energy Minister Dr Akhtar Malik also spoke on the occasion.

A number of PTI workers protested at a lawyer convention before the start of the chief minister’s speech. The workers were protesting against non-display of portraits of Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the convention venue.

APP adds: Chief Minister Usman Buzdar said that no political party other than Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) would honour its pledge of setting up the south Punjab province.

"None other than PTI will establish south Punjab province.

“We had pledged and would honour it," the CM said at the groundbreaking ceremony of south Punjab administrative secretariat.

"Soon, we will hold opening ceremony formally in Multan and Bahawalpur on the same day wherein Prime Minister Imran Khan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and other leadership of PTI will attend,” the CM announced.

Buzdar thanked all parliamentarians of south Punjab, especially Shah Mehmood Qureshi for their untiring support in this connection.

The CM said he had presided over the meeting of 16 secretaries of south Punjab on Thursday.

The Punjab government had allocated 33 per cent of provincial budget for south Punjab which could not be shifted to anywhere else, he said and added that Multan was his home and he would keep on visiting it to solve its problems. The Punjab CM announced elevation of Govt Emerson College Multan as a university besides laying foundation stone of MNS UET university, to be built on 210-kanal piece of land.

He announced second phase of Journalist Colony, adding that a cheque of over Rs50 million had already been issued for the first colony to the MDA.

Regarding lawyers’ demands, Buzdar allocated 20-kanal land to legal fraternity at the Police Lines and six-kanal adjacent to lower courts for building new courts, lawyers’ offices and others buildings. He stated that he has tasked Commissioner Multan Javid Akhtar Mahmood to present a review report on shifting of iron, food and grain markets besides district jail out of city.