Condemnation: PM’s visit to Paris bore no fruit, says Ghani

Says PML-N govt is criticising Billion Tree Tsunami to cover up failure

PESHAWAR: K-P Government Spokesperson and Special Assistant to CM Mushtaq Ghani has said the prime minister’s visit to Paris for an environmental conference failed to bear fruit.

Speaking at a news conference at Civil Secretariat on Friday, Ghani said Pakistan has failed to submit its report on the decline of carbon emissions at the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference.

“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attended the conference along with many officials,” he said. “However, we have failed to reap any benefits from the conference.”

Political point-scoring

According to Ghani, the federal government is only criticising the PTI-led government’s Billion Tree Tsunami programme as it wants to cover up its own failures.



“We are working on the afforestation project and the PML-N-led federal government cannot tolerate this,” he said. “Federal Minister for Information Pervez Rasheed is spewing venom against the initiative for no reason.”

The K-P government spokesperson said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has visited nurseries in Peshawar and DI Khan and has revealed key facts about the initiative to the media.

“Pervez Rasheed should visit K-P to survey work on the project himself and understand the K-P government’s efforts,” he said. “At least one billion trees will be planted in the province by June 2018. This will happen in three phases. Around 500 million plants would be planted by the forestry department.” He added Rs1,316 million has been spent so far and 210 million plants have been grown in the nurseries at Rs787 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th,  2015.