Imran, Buzdar main culprits in Ring Road scam: PML-N

LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) Secretary Information Marriyum has said so-called inquiries and investigations are irrelevant as documents and statements have already proved that Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar are the main culprit in the Ring Road corruption scandal.

In a statement issued on Sunday, she said there was no need for further inquiries and the main culprits, Imran Khan and Usman Buzdar, should be arrested immediately. She said everything that happened in the case was approved and vetted by both Imran and Buzdar. She said Imran was using the same playbook for the Ring Road corruption scandal which he used in the sugar and other mega corruption scandals, wherein he approved means of corruption for his favourites, his ATMs. Then he sets up an eyewash inquiry to exonerate them, she alleged.

And in all of this, he makes the bureaucracy the scapegoat, she added. Marriyum said that on Feb 4, 2021 Imran approved changes to the Ring Road himself and had now set up an inquiry to investigate his own decision, which was a pattern that he follows in all of his acts of corruption and commission.

She asked as to who Imran benefited by approving the changes and who was he benefiting now by calling to halt the project. Marriyum said that CM Punjab Usman Buzdar had approved the changes and yet it was the bureaucracy that was being blamed for it. The con-artist earned what they wanted to and had thrown the bureaucracy under the bus, she said.

Imran approved Attock Mor and Pasvaal Mor himself and later backtracked from his position. The only way to stop that was that bureaucrats should stop following all the government orders. She said it was clear beyond any doubt that Imran and Buzdar took kickbacks for realignment and then again bagged commission by making the project controversial. But all that was exposed by the official documents and the order issued by Imran Khan on January 28, 2020, she said.