LAHORE: Lahore Waste Management Company’s Board of Directors chairman Malik Amjad Ali Noon resigned from his office on Saturday, stating the “corrupt mafia within the government is allegedly focusing on minting money from Rs110 billion cleanliness-related contracts the company plans to award in near future”.

“Politics is under way on the pretext of cleanliness issues in Lahore as mafia within the government seems least interested in ensuring transparency in Rs110 billion contracts to be advertised and awarded in near future. But I don’t want to become part of such corrupt practices,” he told Dawn.

“Therefore, I left the office on Saturday after tendering my resignation to Chief Minister Usman Buzdar to whom I couldn’t meet in person to reveal the truth due to mafia,” he added.

According to letter of Mr Noon, who had served as Pakistan’s ambassador to Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda in 1989-90 and permanent representative to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 90s, said he was foreseeing corruption, dishonesty, conspiracies and filth in the organisation of which he does not want to be a part.

“The corrupt mafia is eager to dole out Rs110 billion contracts and come up with new plans of corruption every day.This mafia wants to make the company a hub of corruption which was not possible in my presence. As the chairman LWMC, I thwarted all these corrupt intentions, but when there are disputes between the higher authorities, which are on the part of the CM Secretariat and Provincial Minister for Industry and Commerce Mian Aslam Iqbal, it is better for the chairman to resign,” he explained in his resignation.

He said in September 2020, the CM entrusted him to take over as the chairman of the LWMC with the primary responsibility of resuscitating a failing company. The foreign subcontractors were holding all of Lahore’s cleanliness functions hostage. At their hands, waste management in the city had been in continuous decline. Along with the MD and board of directors, we worked very hard to institute order within the company and by extension, within the city of Lahore.

However, bypassing all processes of meritocracy and transparency, the minister for industries, commerce and investment had been empowered to oversee procedures within the organisation to “design cost-effective solutions with a roadmap / strategy for future plans”.Earlier, on Thursday, Mr Noon had told this reporter that he would resign if the continuous interruption from the CM secretariat and the minister continues.

Minister Aslam Iqbal and Secretary to CM Tahir Khurshid were not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2021