Punjab Assembly: CM demands investigation of BoP scandal

Chaudhry Zaheeruddin asks why Eden housing is cheaper than Ashiana housing.

LAHORE:

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has asked the Punjab Assembly speaker to form committees to investigate the Bank of Punjab scandal and corruption in the Lahore-Kasur road project.

Thursday’s assembly proceedings began an hour late with the chief minister participating in the general discussion. With the Pakistan Peoples Party supporting the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government’s budget, it was left to Chaudhry Zaheeruddin, the parliamentary leader of the PML-Quaid, to deliver the response to the chief minister’s speech instead of Opposition Leader Raja Riaz.

Speaking on a point of order, Sharif said that the Lahore-Kasur road was sanctioned in 2006, but no work was done on the project for two years. He said that Rs5 billion had been released for the project up till September 2008.

The contractors had taken the money and fled the country. He said that his government had completed this project in three years.

He asked the speaker to form a committee to investigate and suggested that it include Zaheeruddin, Raja and Senior Advisor to the CM Sirdar Zulfiqar Khosa. He sought another committee to investigate embezzlements of Rs75 billion from the Bank of Punjab “by the former regime”.

He said that the Ashiana Housing scheme was for the poor of the province. He said that 3,000 people had been given plots through a ballot of 20,000 applicants. He said that 500 families will be handed the keys to fully built houses in the first week of next month. He said that if any corruption were proven in the Ashiana Housing or Green Tractor schemes, he would resign from his office.

Zaheeruddin asked why the government had not arrested the engineers in charge of disbursements if there had been so much corruption in the Lahore-Kasur road project. He also asked why the government had not finished the Multan Road project, and why private company Eden was offering houses on cheaper installments at lower interest rates than Ashiana houses.

He said that the government should also form investigation committees to probe the fate of funds for the Sast Roti scheme or Food Support Programme.

He said that the Danish Schools were getting an unfair proportion of education funding and other government schools were suffering as a result.

He said that it was regrettable that the chief minister had made no mention of southern Punjab.

Sharif defended the Ashiana scheme, saying that it had more facilities than comparable private schemes. He said that the government had reserved plots for orphans, families of martyrs and other deserving people. Plot owners could get a loan at an interest rate of 8 per cent over 10 years from the government. He said that if Bank of Punjab had not been “robbed”, the government would have enough money to equip all its schools with basic facilities.

After the chief minister left the house, Riaz stood up and demanded that Law Minister Rana Sanaullah be removed from the cabinet for controversial remarks about Babar Awan of the PPP. Sanaullah replied that he wondered why Riaz was talking about the issue when it had been resolved already.  The general discussion on the budget continued past 8pm, when this story was filed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17th, 2011.