Billions misappropriated under Shahbaz, says PAT

LAHORE:

“Rs7 billion has been misappropriated from the Punjab government during Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s seven-year tenure,” says a white paper issued by Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) on Sunday.

According to PAT’s ‘fact sheet’ billions of rupees were misappropriated in the Sasti Roti Project, Danish Schools Project, Nandipur Power Project, the Youth Internship Programme, the Metro Bus project, local government funds, the Food Support Programme, the laptops scheme, the green tractor Scheme and the solar lamps scheme.

The report says the government has not made public a report on the Sasti Roti project.

The report says Rs30 billion was spent on the project and some paragraphs from the audit report were also published in the media but now the chief minister never talks about this. Neither does he allow anyone to mention this,” the PAT paper said.

The report says that billions of rupees were embezzled in the Danish Schools project.

The report says delays in the Nandipur project had caused a loss of billions of rupees.

“At the time of the inauguration of the Quaid-i-Azam Solar Park’s inauguration, it was claimed that the project would produce 100 megawatts, but recently the chief minister told a press conference that the output was 18 MW,” the report says.

It said the chief minister said Rs13 billion had been spent on the solar power project but had failed to inform the public that a Rs150 billion loan had been taken for that project.

The report says that Rs14 billion was spent on the Food Support Programme but it was shut down in 2011.

It says Rs150 billion had been issued for local governments though there had been no elected local governments in seven years.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th,  2015.