Balochistan Assembly: Opposition says protest to continue till cabinet quits

Khazana leak scandal reverberates through house

QUETTA: The Balochistan Assembly continues to echo with calls for the resignation of the cabinet after trunk-loads of embezzled cash was recently recovered from the home of the now suspended finance secretary of the province.

The opposition in the Balochistan Assembly threatened on Saturday to continue its protest until the resignation of the cabinet over the recovery of looted public money popularly dubbed as Khazana leak.

The session of the provincial legislature resumed after a day’s pause with Speaker Raheela Hameed Khan Durrani in chair. Soon after the recitation of the Holy Quran, the opposition benches began to beat their desks and exchanged harsh sentences with the treasury benches.

So fierce was the verbal duelling that the speaker had to order the censoring of many sentences from the proceedings and the microphone of Deputy Opposition Leader Zamrak Khan Achakzai was turned off. The opposition members walked out subsequently creating much ado in the House.



Former CM Dr Abdul Malik Baloch said that opposition had continuously been resorting to false statements after recovery of over Rs730 million from the house of suspended finance secretary Balochistan.

The  former CM said he had never promised anyone the moon. “I never claimed that when in power no bullets will be fired in Balochistan, neither had I claimed that corruption will be eradicated from its roots.”

He said that over the corruption scandal of the finance secretary, the party leadership had asked Adviser to CM on Finance Khalid Langove to resign, prompting him to do so, adding that the procedures are followed in a legal way.

He said that since the day the corruption incident had come to fore, he had been present with his colleagues in the house, adding that the opposition was also making false statements regarding Reko Diq project as he had made no dealings on it and the matter of the mega project is sub-judice.

Malik recalled that when he assumed power, his predecessors had allotted so much land in Gwadar that not a single acre was left with the government. The port city’s land belonged to the provincial government, but the former rulers had shown it as their private property and demanded Rs23 billion from the federal government to hand over its rights, he said. The ex-CM said he had cancelled all these dubious allotments.

The only chief minister of Balochistan with a middle-class background said that a committee should be formed to probe the allegations of corruption against him.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2016.