Pervaiz Rasheed strongly rebutted PPP Minister Kaira’s statement

Lahore:In a statement issued here on Monday, Pakistan Muslim League-N Senator Pervaiz Rasheed has strongly rebutted PPP Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira’s statement and has accused the PPP federal government of an insidious and dirty conspiracy against the Punjab government.

The Senator said it was enough of the patience from the common man suffering from the inhuman loadshedding caused by PPP government’s policies. He said the federal government wants the Punjab government to react to the justified protests of the populace which included common man, household, traders and the entire business community. “We are here to console and show solidarity with the teeming millions. If you (Zardari government) want us to face the brunt caused by your policies, corruption and inefficiency, it’s not going to happen. It is you who is discriminating Punjab, and now you want us to fire upon people and rescue you? You are mistaken”, said the Senator.

The Senator advised the PPP government to show courage and accept its failures instead of dreaming Machiavellian-style to create a gulf between the masses and PML-N. The federal government, he said, was trying to divert attention from the real issues and resorting to baseless allegations after it had failed to tackle the energy crisis. As far as the allegations of sponsoring the riots in Punjab is concerned, the provincial government cannot and would not use brute force against the demonstrators as it would only aggravate the situation. People are angry and only a restrained response will ensure that situation remains under control. It is nothing but political gimmickry to accuse the Punjab government of forcing the people to come out on the streets, as everybody knows that the real culprit is the federal government, which is allocating Rs 70 billion to worthless ventures like BISP, but have no money for the circular debt. The fact is however, that despite the repeated demands by Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif to take strict action against those involved in pushing the province into darkness due to negligence and corruption in 900MW power projects in Punjab, the Zardari government deliberately did not take any step to address the reasons behind the criminal negligence demonstrated in the power projects of 450MW each in Nandipur and Chicho Ki Malian which is a deep conspiracy against Punjab and Pakistan. The federal government has used delaying tactics just to target Punjab, which raised the cost by Rs 20 billion. It is a well-orchestrated conspiracy against the people of the province, as PPP knows the people are not ready to vote for them again. The Nandipur power plant was scheduled to be completed a year ago and the machinery of this project worth billions of rupees is lying in the godowns of Karachi on which heavy demurrage is being paid. The project was being executed by Chinese company and it should have become operational in the beginning of this year but unfortunately it could not be made operational. The file of this project remained pending in the Ministry of Law Islamabad for the last about two years and the desired letter could not be issued by the Finance Ministry due to bribe. The same situation is of the 450MW project of Chicho Ki Malian. This project had to be completed next year but this project has also been delayed for further two years due to criminal negligence of the federal government. He said that these projects remained pending due to the hurdles created by Law Department and had these projects been completed within stipulated time, the Punjab province would have got substantial relief from loadshedding.