LAHORE: Chief Minister Usman Buzdar says empowerment of the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) bore fruit as it recovered the state land from land grabbers and made recoveries worth Rs206 billion during the tenure of the PTI government.

Flanked by Adviser to Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar, the chief minister told a news conference through a video link on Thursday the present government had laid its hands on the politicians and influential mafia that deprived the masses of their basic human rights during the past three decades.

Giving details of recoveries by the ACE, Mr Buzdar said the department had received 51,050 complaints, launched 11,488 inquiries, registered 3,185 cases and arrested 3,904 accused.

“The anti-corruption department, during the past 27 months, recovered the state land worth Rs181bn from the influential land grabbers compared to the state land worth Rs2.65bn during the past 10 years.”

The CM said the PTI government was following a zero tolerance policy against corruption and all the influential people involved in land grabbing or corruption were being caught. He said the anti-corruption campaign would help recover resources that would be utilised for the welfare of people in the province.

Mr Shahzad Akbar said, “The prime minister is committed that such corrupt mafia would neither be given any NRO in the federal government nor in Punjab”.

Mr Akbar said the general public also participated in the anti-corruption campaign while using the ‘Report Corruption App’ while keeping their identity secret. He said the anti-corruption department had taken action on 5,196 applications while 1,278 such complaints were still lying pending. He said the PTI government would launch the app in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and asked the Sindh government to follow the suit.

Mr Akbar said the narrative that only the opposition was being targeted was not true. In the sugar inquiry commission report, he said, the influential people belonging to all parties were identified for corruption.

The prime minister’s aide said the federal government had taken up the matter of former premier Nawaz Sharif’s deportation to Pakistan, said

“The federal government has officially demanded that the British government should deport Mr Sharif for being an absconder and a convict.”

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2020