SUKKUR: Criticising corruption in Sindh, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) central leader Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said those who used to travel in rickshaws and did not have Otaqs (drawing rooms), today such ministers and elected public representatives are the owners of Pajeros and palaces.

During the past seven year of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government, he said, the situation in Sindh was not improved, but the condition of ministers as well as that of elected public representatives had been improved.

Speaking at a ‘Meet the Press’ programme at the Sukkur press club along with PTI leader Haleem Adil Shaikh and his son Zain Shah on Wednesday, he said that due to fear of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), some ministers of Sindh had fled while many others were preparing to escape from the country.

He questioned why NAB failed to see any thing objectionable in Punjab. Mr Qureshi said what Karachi’s former mayor Mustafa Kamal and former provincial health minister Dr Sagheer said was an issue of national concern. He asked why the federal government was silent over the PTI’s demand for the formation of a judicial commission on the issue, though such commissions were constituted on smaller issues.

The federal government should have moved into action by now, he said.

He said the Sindh chief secretary, IGP and chairman of inspection team of the Sindh chief minister were on bail and asked how these who were themselves on bail would protect the lives and properties of people.

He said that during the past seven years, Sindh was given Rs700 billion for development works while Rs280 billion was given to TMAs for uplift activities, but nothing was seen in any town of Sindh, including Hyderabad and Sukkur.He said that according to facts and figures of the government, there were 6,000 schools which were functioning only on papers.

He said the PPP and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had ruled over Sindh, but the condition of the province was the worst.

Mr Qureshi said former president Asif Ali Zardari was making all the decisions of the party and not giving opportunity to Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to stand on his own feet. On the pretext of illness, Mr Zardari was living out of the country. He could go to New York from Dubai by covering a long distance and not from Dubai to Karachi, he added.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2016