LAHORE: The Pakistan Awami Tehreek has released a ‘white paper’ on the performance of the Punjab government over the past year, saying it has exposed the myth of good governance in the province.

Releasing the paper here on Sunday, a PAT spokesman said it was based on information collected from national and international media and officials of various departments, including police.

It says that 25 policemen lost their lives in 248 encounters with criminals, while 235 people died in custody. Of the 6,100 incidents of gang-rape, FIRs were registered in 2,402. The paper says that 50 per cent of crimes against women are never registered while provincial minister Hameeda Waheeduddin’s demand for a legislation to curb crimes against women fell on deaf ears.

Over 300,000 street crimes are taking place in the province each month, but FIRs are registered only in 25pc cases to show a decline in the crime graph.

It says 12,245 children were kidnapped this year, whereas on an average 12,000 cases of kidnapping and kidnapping for ransom were registered. Crime against women went up by 19pc.

The paper says that the Punjab chief minister had claimed to have broken the begging bowl, but the province took new loans notwithstanding Rs580 billion outstanding loans and mark-up whose repayment is adversely affecting budgets for education, health and other social sectors.

It regrets that Punjab has failed to establish a sound financial management system despite seven years of rule of Shahbaz Sharif.

According to the report, the incidents of Model Town, Kot Radha Kishan, Wagah Border and police thrashing of blind protesters exposed “incompetence” of the government and tarnished the country’s image.

The paper says that the Sasti Roti programme and mechanical tandoor schemes proved a liability for the food department, which is under a debt of Rs80 billion and has been paying a mark-up up of Rs9bn each year since 2012.

It says only 17pc of the allocated budgets for development in the education and health sectors was released in the first quarter of the current year. There are 7,000 vacancies of doctors and 22,000 of subject specialists but patients are suffering in hospitals.

The Awami Tehreek claims that the government failed to control inflation and prices of vegetables soared to a record level.

It says the Punjab governor has revealed that of the 700 factories producing pesticides in the province 650 are illegal and the government is not taking any action against them.

Punjab PAT president Basharat Jaspal and general secretary Fayyaz Warraich say their party will expose corruption, bad governance and mismanagement in all departments of the Punjab government.

Published in Dawn December 8th , 2014