Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed has slammed a recent survey praising the Punjab government.
The survey, which was released by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) on Tuesday, ranked Punjab the highest in terms of governance out of the country’s four provinces.
Talking to reporters on Wednesday, Rasheed branded the PILDAT survey “a futile attempt to save Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s skin.”
“The survey was conducted between July 16 and August 6, a period when Shahbaz Sharif and his government were facing severe criticism over the Model Town killings,” he said. “How could anyone rate his [Shahbaz’s] performance highly in those days?”
The opposition leader added that at the time, the Punjab chief minister was himself dissatisfied with his own and his government’s performance.
Rasheed claimed over 40% of schools in Punjab lacked basic facilities. Hundreds of teaching positions were currently lying vacant and over 70% of students in the province had failed their annual exams, he said. “Is this the educational progress Shahbaz Sharif is proud of?”
Citing a health department clarification regarding more than 7,000 vacant posts for professors, surgeons and specialists, the opposition leader questioned how the department could serve the public in this state. Referring to a ‘secret report’, Rasheed also said that crime in Punjab had risen by 110%. “Despite this, 91,000 cases were never registered,” he said. “The report is on record, anyone can take a look at it.”
The opposition leader also criticised the ruling PML-N for failing to conduct local government elections in Punjab despite holding power in the province for six years.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2014.
COMMENTS (9)
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Shahbaz is the Mother Theresa of Punjabistan. You should see him rocking little orphans to sleep. Eating dal/besan roti to save money buy crutches for polio victims.
the survey may be ok, but its people who are fool as per Tanzanian President
Everything is turned political. Even when someone tries to do better on governance.
IK has done nothing bu destruction of Islamabad. Here some one doing something positive to address some of iK complaint. But No. Nothing but resignation good enough.
OK. I dont want to pay my taxes any way so I will civil disobey.
PAT has many script writers
I must say I was surprised with this survey, but decided to take it with a pinch of salt, as it seemed to be totally contradictory to other surveys inc international ones.
As to local elections in KPK, the KPK government is ready, but the delay is at the Election Commision so that biometrics etc can be used to ensure fair and transparent local elections. If I was KPK government, because Bio-metrics and improvements in Election Commission are gonna take a while (if they ever move), I would use the current system, but do elections in 1 area at a time (this may mean it takes a couple of months) and have at each polling station a member from each party who are allowed to observe the voting and counting (and maybe CCTV as well). This will hopefully help ensure the election is acceptable to all the parties and decrease the risk of rigging.
2013 Elections were held with 60-70,000 unverifiable votes in every constituency according to Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar and these so called "Research institutes and organizations" termed these very elections as "largely/mostly" fair. These organizations have no credibility
The failure to hold LB elections in Punjab is certainly a major failure of the PMLN government. The more unfortunate face is that KPK government has also miserably failed in doing the same despite PTI's loud declarations in the run up to elections to hold them in 90 days.
Hence, in the absence of a better alternative, the public is chosing to side with the devil you know than the one you dont!
Old bad habits are difficult to break? Perhaps he needs few PAT workers in his office alone.
Back to square one. Back to the arrogance and ignorance that are the hallmarks of our politicians. The CM must be glowing with these meaningless displays. But enough fodder to be repeated ad nauseum for months to come. Glowing tributes from loyal bureaucrats to follow.Keep it up Pakistan, we are not destined to change.