PM congratulates communications ministry, NHA for saving public money

Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulated on Thursday the Ministry of Communication and the National Highway Authority for saving public money through transparency and digitisation.

"4 lane highway - 138% reduced cost from PMLN govt; 125% increase in revenues and Rs.5.18 bn worth land freed from encroachments," the premier said in a tweet.

He added that all this was achieved despite global price hikes and inflation.

A day earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the 293-kilometre long Hakla-Dera Ismail Khan Motorway, expressing the confidence that this important part of the Western route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would help raise the living standards of the people in these areas.

Addressing the inauguration ceremony, the prime minister pointed out that previously the development of the country was confined only to GT Road, Lahore and onwards to Karachi, which were also called Eastern route of the CPEC.

“But a country achieves progress if there is uniform development across its length and breadth. It is made possible by long-term planning like China, which has planned 30 years ahead,” he added. “The future planning will envisage a roadmap towards progress, embracing all parts of Pakistan,” he said.

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The prime minister said that during the last 25 years, he had been consistently maintaining that corruption had been the biggest issue of Pakistan. “In the past, roads were constructed at exorbitant costs as the money was going into someone else’s pockets,” he said.

“Roads were constructed for making money. How come roads constructed during 2013 were costly, but were now being completed at lower costs,” he wondered. “About Rs1,000 billion have gone into the pockets of the corrupt, it happened with a poor nation,” he regretted.

However, he said that revenues of the National Highway Authority (NHA) had doubled after the current government took steps against corruption, including e-tendering, besides recovery of the encroached land belonging to the NHA worth Rs5 billion.