“Why we want to push North Waziristan out of Pakistan? Foreign actors are also involved in this dangerous game.”Appealing to Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, he said: “For God sake think about Pakistan”. He claimed that women and children were dying in the ongoing operation and the East Pakistan-like thinking was developing among people.
The PTI chief asked where was the leadership of Pakistan and said the prime minister was busy undertaking foreign visits. He said the prime minister had undertaken record 14 foreign tours whereas foreign investment was the lowest ever during this period.
He again said Pakistan must come out of others’ war and insisted that war was no solution to Pakistan’s problems. He advocated resumption of talks with the Taliban. Imran pointed out that there had been significant decrease in terror acts after the start of peace process with the Taliban. He noted there had been a change in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa following talks with the Taliban.
Criticizing the government policies, he said the sense of deprivation among smaller provinces was increasing.Imran claimed to have received scores of messages that locals in Waziristan thought as if the agency was being separated. He recalled how he had witnessed a sense of deprivation among the people of East Pakistan when he was on tour as part of under-19 cricket team, where it was felt they were being treated as a colony of Pakistan. Imran said the same feeling was seething in Balochistan.
The PTI chief said it seemed as if only the Punjab was Pakistan for mega projects, as projects like metro bus were being launched there instead of funds allocation for hydel power projects.Imran claimed that circular rail project was for Karachi being Pakistan’s biggest city, but it was abandoned and now metro train project was to be started in Lahore, costing double amount.
“An impression is being given to the people of smaller provinces that Punjab was the only Pakistan,” he asserted.He repeated his demand for thumb verification of voters in four constituencies and claimed worst ever rigging was carried out during the last year’s general election. Imran noted that a party which could not hold public meetings in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore had bagged so many votes after the polls.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak said the prime minister should follow the Constitution in running Pakistan as a federation. He also complained that the Centre was ignoring his province. He said if the federation supported his province, they could produce power at the rate of Rs2-3 per unit. He reminded Nawaz Sharif that he was the prime minister of Pakistan and not of Punjab only.
Imran reiterated that they had proposed to the Centre to hand power generation and distribution over to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saying they could not only cut down line losses, but also reduce power tariff. But, he continued, the federal government had declined to hand the electricity system over to them.
Khattak noted that his province that produced gas, hydel power and oil was being deprived of its rightful share of funds by the federal government. He said the federal government was yet to pay Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the agreed payment of Rs6 billion net hydel profit.
In addition, the decision on uncapping of net hydel profits, which was finalized by the technical committee of the federal government in March 2013 and duly notified, had yet to be implemented. “These arrears stand in excess of Rs138 billion owed to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government,” he said.
He said levy of excise duty on crude oil came under Article 161 of the Constitution. “This is the provincial revenue but the federal government has to notify it which they are refusing to do. As a result, the annual loss of revenue for his province is in excess of Rs15 billion,” Khattak said.
Khattak said provision of Windfall Levy under Clause 4.1 of the Petroleum Policy 2015 of which 50 per cent was to go to the province had not been levied. This had caused a loss of more than Rs25 billion per annum to the province.
Non-payment of royalty on LPG as decreed by the PHC was resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of rupees annually, he maintained.Meanwhile, the Geo News team was Tuesday afternoon barred from covering the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan’s news briefing at his Bani Gala residence here.
“Sorry, we have orders not to let you in,” asserted a security official when asked by a Geo journalist as to why they were not being allowed in to cover the event.The Geo team waited outside Imran’s residence along with the DSNG van but no one came out to let them enter the premises.
During the news briefing, when one of the media persons drew Imran’s attention towards the issue, he said the PTI was on boycott of Geo/Jang Group which will continue unless Jang Group owner apologised to him for their alleged campaign against him.
Meanwhile, a Jang Group spokesman said no campaign was launched against Imran Khan. If he had any proofs in this regard, he should send these to the Jang Group. He said the Jang Group people were in touch with the PTI team and they were never informed of any such alleged campaign.
The spokesman said as for as the coverage of recent days is concerned it was in self defence and consisted of replies to the allegations leveled by the PTI chief. He said these allegations have been proved wrong one by one. Imran Khan would not accept this but all will be clear in courts.The spokesman said Imran Khan can approach Pemra, Council of Complaints and courts in this regard.
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