LAHORE: Punjab PML-N Information Secretary Azma Zahid Bukhari has issued a ‘white paper’ on the one-year performance of the PTI’s provincial government.

She said the Buzdar government changed three information ministers in one year and three IGPs were replaced in the first three months after assuming power. She said Chief Minister Usman Buzdar could not complete his training (as CM) and was unable to read and assess official files even after a year and disqualified Jehangir Khan Tareen was running the show without being taken notice by any court of law.

Referring to the legal lacuna in the Aab-e-Pak Authority, she lamented that the governor had been appointed the patron in-chief of the authority though he is a representative of the federal government and cannot head a provincial entity.

Alluding to the PTI promise of establishing south Punjab province within 100 days of assuming power, Ms Bukhari said the promise could not be materialised even after 365 days. Even the commitment of making south Punjab secretariat functional from July 1 also remained unfulfilled, she said.

She said an artists’ support fund was abolished and the deserving performers were offered the lollipop of Insaf Card. The government of Shahbaz Sharif had been giving Rs20,000 a month to the financially weak artists, she said.

She said former KP IG Nasir Durrani resigned without police reforms. The government said it had no funds for streetlights and manhole lids but new vehicles were purchased for the chief minister and his cabinet members, said the document.

A sum of Rs2 billion was spend in the home constituency of the chief minister but not a penny was spent in Lahore where the Orange Line Metro Train project could not be completed despite the July 31 deadline given by the Supreme Court.

She said at least 5,000 laptops purchased by the last government were lying with the Higher Education Department as these could not be distributed among the students.

On the justice front, Ms Bukhari said, the family of four innocent citizens shot dead by law enforcers in Sahiwal could not be provided justice despite a lapse of so many months. The family had been silenced by offering Rs30 million, she claimed.

The PML-N leader also highlighted the PTI government’s ‘poor’ working in the health sector and said free medicines and free test facility in the state-run hospitals had been done away with. More than 20 children died in Sargodha and Sahiwal hospitals because of non-functioning air-conditioners, she said.

She said the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Transplant Institute (PKLI) was converted into a political entity by Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2019