Billion Tree Tsunami: Afridi submits a resolution seeking NAB intervention

PPP MPA says project full of corruption, fraud and false documentation

PESHAWAR: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MPA Ziaullah Afridi has demanded from the provincial assembly to refer corruption and malpractices in Billion Tree Tsunami project to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Afridi, a former minister for mines and mineral development, has submitted a resolution in the provincial assembly secretariat on Wednesday asking the house to send the BTT project to NAB for an inquiry in corruption, jugglery of numbers, purchase of saplings without issuing tenders and cash payment of over Rs6 billion. He has termed the BTT project as a mega scandal in the resolution and asked for punishment to those who are involved in the scandal.

Afridi has stated that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led K-P government and PTI chairman Imran Khan has claimed that they have successfully planted 1.18 billion trees in the province and they are continuing the programme to take it to 2 billion trees plantation across the province.

“The people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were shocked and depressed when it came to their information that the government records reveals 240 million trees have been planted actually rather than 1.18 billion, it says and demands NAB inquiry in the project.

Afridi was an active worker of PTI who later got elected as member of the provincial assembly in the 2013 general elections from Peshawar. He was minister for mines and minerals development in the K-P cabinet until July 2015, when he was arrested by the K-P Ehtesab commission in a case of illegal mining.

The PHC then granted him bail in 2016, after which he joined PPP.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 15^th, 2018.