LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah on Saturday said the provincialgovernment will formulate a legislation to curtail the powers of theNational Accountability Bureau (NAB) after the “unlawful” arrest of theLahore Development Authority’s former director general Ahad Cheema.
“Such conduct of the bureau would be raised in the assembly’ session as thegovernment won’t tolerate this sort of behaviour,” said Sanaullah as headdressed a presser in a rebuttal to the press conference of PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan in which the latter hurledaccusations at the civil servants.
Throwing his weight behind the powerful bureaucracy of Punjab, Sana termedAhad Cheema innocent and said that the reservations of bureaucrats againstthe arrest of Cheema were genuine. He also sought an apology from the civilservants, saying he was sorry that the PTI chief dragged them into hisconflict with the Sharif family.
“It is incomprehensible that persons like Imran Khan got popularity despitebeing a habitual liar,” Sana said, adding that Imran has been hurlingallegations against the government of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N)for the last four years but he miserably failed to prove even his singleallegation of corruption against the provincial government.
“Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Fawad Hassan Fawad, Secretary toChief Minister Imdadullah Bosal, Intelligence Bureau DG Aftab Sultan andAdditional Chief Secretary Umar Rasool are dedicated civil servants whohave spent their lives in public service,” the law minister said, addingthat it was regrettable that their careers were being questioned by the“shameless PTI chief”.
Unfortunately, such a person got popularity who was immodest, RanaSanaullah said adding that there was a level of opposition in politics allover the world but the type of language the PTI chairman today used againstcivil officers was condemnable.
“The Punjab government has not allocated even a single plot to thebureaucrats as Shahbaz Sharif himself abolished the perk during his firststint as the CM in 1998,” he said and dared Imran Khan to hold anotherpresser in response if he has any proof in this regard.
Calling out the PTI chief for never substantiating his claims, he said thatImran Khan used to say that Punjab Metro Bus project was built at a cost of70 billion rupees despite the fact that CM Punjab had repeatedly said thatthe project was completed with a cost of just 29 billion, adding that “we[the government] even provided all the record to the TransparencyInternational and got validation of our claim from the agency”.