QUETTA: The Baloch­is­tan Chief Minister’s Adviser on Financial Affairs Sardar Muhammad Aslam Bizenjo resigned from his office on Monday, alleging that some high-ups of the Planning and Development Depart­ment were unnecessarily interfering in the work of his department.

“I have submitted my resignation to Chief Minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri,” Sardar Bizenjo of the National Party said, adding that he had taken the decision in view of wrongdoings of the Planning and Development Department.

He told reporters that the finance department was already facing a serious situation because of a scandal in which the National Accountability Bureau had seized a huge amount of money from the residence of a former finance secretary.

He said that after the mega financial scandal unfolded in the finance department, Chief Minister Zehri had kept the portfolio with himself till last year, but later he handed over the office of the adviser “to me after consultation with coalition partners and the National Party during my absence, as I was in the United States at that time”.

He said he had already told his party’s leaders that he could not run the affairs of the department because of massive corruption in it, but “I accepted the portfolio due to the pressure of the party leadership”.

Sardar Bizenjo, who is also the provincial Agriculture Minister, said Rs8 billion was recently got released from the finance department and the minister for planning and development had spent the amount in his constituency.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2017