MINGORA: Giving credit to his party’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for adopting corruption-free policies and putting the province on a path of development, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan said on Friday that all development projects of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government were only seen in advertisements as there was nothing on the ground.

He said this while speaking at a public gathering in Kalam held in connection with the groundbreaking ceremony of the 84-megawatt Gorkin-Matiltan hydro power project.

A large number of people, including local elders, workers and PTI leadership attended the event. KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and provincial minister Mehmood Khan also accompanied the PTI chairman.

Mr Khan said that while KP was on a road to change, other provinces were going down because of their corruption-ridden governments.

He criticised the federal government for its wrong policies and reiterated his stance that the chairmen of both the National Accountability Bureau and the Federal Board of Revenue should be in jail for not taking action against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Mr Khan said that because of the menace of corruption no local or foreign investor came to the country. “Today, due to KP’s good governance and corruption-free policies Italian companies are willing to invest in the province,” he said. He said no nation could achieve development until it strengthened its institutions.

“How did we change the KP police department? By giving it autonomy and by depoliticising it,” he said, adding: “Wherever I go today I feel so proud that people praise the KP police.”

Pointing out the fragile law and order situation across the country, he said that even a member of the Punjab Assembly was looted in Lahore. “This is because the police are used for every wrong thing — to victimise opponents and as a power tool — by politicians,” he said.

He said that the Punjab police were illegally used against the KP CM when he was coming to Islamabad last month. However, it was not the fault of the police department since it was the rulers who had politicised the institution.

Published in Dawn December 3rd, 2016