Opposition parties to drag K-P govt to court for denying development funds

Leader of opposition says attitude of speaker, secretary K-P assembly discriminatory

PESHAWAR: Opposition parties have decided to drag the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government to court for denying development funds to opposition lawmakers and passing amended local bodies bill.

K-P Assembly Leader of Opposition Akram Khan Durrani, while addressing a press conference along with other opposition lawmakers, said that provincial information minister knew the art of changing the fact and figures from false to true.

He challenged K-P Information Minister Shaukat Yousufzai to public debate over the development funds, LG amendment bill, BRT and billion tree tsunami projects.

Durrani took a strong exception of the attitude of the K-P Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani towards ANP MPA Bahadur Ali who was denied the right to speak on a point of order.

“We will not tolerate the environment which the ruling party desires, we condemn the attitude of speaker, deputy and chief minister on the assembly floor,” he said.

It is a ritual of the provincial assembly that opposition always takes their time on adjournment motion, point of order and calling attention notices, but Speaker Mushtaq Ghani refused to let Bhadur Khan present his point of order.

“Though considered impartial in parliamentary democracy, speaker became part of the ruling party,” Durrani said.

Regarding release of development funds to lawmakers for their respective constituencies, leader of opposition said only MPAs sitting on treasury benches were getting allocations.

“We demand Chief Minister Mahmood Khan not to discernment in the allocation development budget. The CM is bestowing fovours on his party members generously and ignoring opposition benches,” Durrani stated.

Chief Minister Mahmood has allocated Rs100 million development fund to PTI MPAs from southern districts but gave only Rs50 million to opposition lawmakers from these under developed areas.

About the billion-tree-tsunami project, Durrani said it was only exaggerated numbers. A committee of K-P Assembly was set up to probe into the issue but the government created circumstances rendering the whole exercise futile. “We were ready to provide physical proof of corruption in billion-tree tsunami project to Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai, but he did not attend the meeting,” Durrani said. Though opposition had resigned from standing committee, but still they were members of parliamentary commission, so they went to visit the area where there were reports of corruption in billion-tree-tsunami project, and also went to Swat to survey the places where government claims to have planted thousands of trees.

Following the on-ground survey, Durrani said: “We have found proofs of corruption in the billion tree tsunami.”

Moreover, he said there were confirmed reports of corruption in BRT and education foundation projects.

Regarding NAB inquiry against him the JUI-F leader said NAB has served him notice over construction of mosque in his department.

As of the Malamjaba Ski Resort case, the whole world knows that it was scheme of the past PTI led government.

Durrani said he had given Forests Minister Ishtiaq Urmar names of seven officials of forestry department who have been cleared by the court. “No one was listening to these officials so they came to the opposition and we forwarded their names,” Durrani said mentioning the episode of forest officials facing corruption charges.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2019.