PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has asked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa mineral development minister Ziaullah Afridi, who was arrested by provincial ehtesaab commission on the charge of misuse of powers, to either resign from his portfolio or get ready for sacking.

Information minister Mushtaq Ghani told Dawn that either Ziaullah would have to resign himself or the provincial government would have to move to remove him from the provincial cabinet.

“As long as the inquiry against him (Ziaullah) is going on, he is not going to be a minister,” he said. Though the provincial government has yet to decide about the fate of the arrested minister, the ruling PTI was quick to act after his arrest as it announced that Ziaullah was not a minister anymore.

The PTI core committee headed by chairman Imran Khan and comprising senior party members, including Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, has decided to not to let Ziaullah remain a member of the provincial cabinet until he clears the charge leveled against him by the estesab commission.

In an immediate response to the arrest of Ziaullah by the provincial ehtesab commission on Friday (July 9), the PTI chairman, who was in Peshawar to attend a fund raising iftar function for Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital, announced that Ziaullah would have to resign from the cabinet and that he could get back the ministry only after getting clearance from the ehtesab commission on corruption charge.

Even in the past, Imran Khan was quick to sack ministers whether they were from PTI or its coalition partner when allegations of corruption surfaced against them.

Giving poor performance as the reason, the PTI chairman had removed Shaukat Yousafzai from the cabinet and adviser to the chief minister Yasin Khalil. They both belongs to the PTI. Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had also sacked two ministers, both from the Qaumi Watan Party, over corruption and poor performance.

Minister Mushtaq Ghani also regretted that Ziaullah, who remained very close to the chief minister for two years, used uncivilised language against Pervez Khattak, a senior party leader. He said the ehtesab commission was set up by the PTI government to ensure accountability and Ziaullah should have not tried to politicise its affairs.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2015

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