LAHORE, June 8: PPP MPA Farzana Raja alleged on Wednesday that the Punjab chief minister was using for personal projection the funds provided by the World Bank for creating awareness among the people. At a news conference at the office of party’s information secretary Naveed Chaudhry, she said the World Bank had provided Rs5,000 million for education, 10 per cent of which was supposed to have been utilized on the awareness campaign. But the campaign launched by the Punjab government, she said, was more for the image building of the chief minister than for explaining the objectives of the project.

The PPP leader, who is party’s spokesperson for information and IT departments, also raised fingers at the Punjab Development Fund, set up by the government. No account of the funds, being collected through the sale of tickets, was being maintained, she said, adding in such a situation there was no question of the funds being audited at any stage.

In her opinion, the very launch of the PDF was violative of the policy given by the State Bank.

She said an official had written a book on the chief minister, and as a reward he had been kept on the same post for the past seven years.

She alleged that the son of an important figure in Punjab, in cooperation with some others, had got a huge loan from a bank, without offering any guarantees, and then made a profit of billions of rupees in a land deal. The company in the name of which all transactions were made existed only on paper, alleged Farzana, whose husband Pir Mukarram Shah has been convicted by a court on corruption charges.

She also accused the chief minister of having committed other irregularities.

“Would it not have been better if the corruption charges had been levelled by some leader whose own hands were clean and who was not facing corruption charges,” a reporter asked, referring to the conviction of her husband.

Farzana said the charges against her husband were part of a victimization campaign the government was carrying out against its opponents. She believed that ultimately, her spouse would be acquitted of charges.

Naveed Chaudhry said Farzana Raja had given the news conference under instructions from the party.