CPEC project: PTI misleading people of K-P, says Sardar Yousaf

Minister for religious affairs accuses K-P govt of spreading propaganda against economic corridor

MANSEHRA: In a rare rebuke, the Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousaf on Monday chastised the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for misleading people in the province about the Western route of CPEC.

Speaking at a post-Haj ceremony arranged by the Pakistan Aman Council at the Mansehra Press Club on Monday, Yousaf said propaganda spread by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was meant to create hurdles in the development of the multi-billion dollar project.





Yousaf was referring to statements made by K-P Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in recent days in which he claimed that the Chinese Ambassador had told him that a Western Route for the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) did not exist. Khattak’s statement had subsequently been categorically denied by an official of the Chinese embassy.

Extolling benefits of the project, the federal minister said that entire K-P would benefit from CPEC which would help kick start the process of prosperity and development by creating thousands of jobs for locals.

He added that the hue and cry raised by the provincial government over the routes was an unsuccessful attempt to cover up its own failures.

“Is Hazara division not part of K-P? If not, then Pervez Khattak must tell the people which province this area belongs to and what is its constitutional status?” he asked.

Yousaf went on to accuse Khattak of harbouring enmity towards the Hazara division, adding that prosperity of people in the region was too much for the K-P CM to digest.



He warned that the people of Hazara would not allow Khattak to create hurdles in CPEC, a project which would not only change the fate of those living in Hazara division, but of the entire country.

District Nazim Sardar Said Ghulam, JI’s district chief Tariq Sherazi and MPA Sardar Zahoor were prominent among those who spoke to the gathering.

Yousaf, who also heads the pro-Hazara province regional movement Sub-Hazara Tehreek, said that he would organize an all parties conference in Hazara after Muharram to discuss and finalise the future line of action on the role of PTI’s government and future of CPEC.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2016.