PESHAWAR: Pakistan Peoples Party has called for even-handed accountability to overcome corruption in real sense and asked the government to stop victimisation of opposition leaders.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club, PPP women wing provincial president MPA Nighat Orakzai and provincial secretary information Senator Rubina Khalid alleged that the government had started victimisation of opposition leaders in the name of accountability through the National Accountability Bureau. They said that politicians were being discredited ‘for no fault of theirs’.

They said that if the government was sincere to eradicate corruption it should start the accountability process from its own ministers and open the files of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Billion Tree Tsunami Project, Malam Jabba land allotment case and other projects to unveil faces of those claiming to be clean. They said that repeated changes in the BRT design had made the lives of people miserable, but no one was there to stop corruption.

Ask govt to stop victimisation of opposition

The PPP leaders said that the PTI leadership had announced education and health emergencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but it did not carry out a single project to resolve the problems of health and education sectors so far.

They also referred to the government’s claims that the opposition leaders were seeking NRO, but it was avoiding making public names of such applicants. They claimed that Aleema Khan’s was a clear-cut NRO as no action was taken by NAB against her.

In addition, the PPP leaders said that the government had failed to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) otherwise it would have so far arrested many people sitting in the power corridors. They said that the government was hoodwinking people which was clear from Imran Khan’s public meeting in Bajaur where he did not announce any concrete development project for the militancy-hit tribal people.

The women lawmakers said that the PPP workers were waiting for a call from the top leadership to launch agitation against the government if it did not stop the campaign against opposition. They also criticised Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmad for his remarks against the PPP leadership and warned that the party workers would besiege his Lal Haveli if he did not change his attitude.

“The government should stop joking with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and provide him with the opportunity to get quality medical treatment which is his basic right,” they said.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2019