Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz, said on Wednesday that the government was giving a wrong impression that opposition was looking for a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
In a talk with newsmen in Lahore, Hamza Shehbaz said the government ministers were not just incompetent rather they speak lies as well.
He also referred to Prime Minister Imran Khan and asked him not take “shelter” under the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
He claimed that peasants and labourers among others were all unhappy with the government measures. He said the economy’s growth rate had drastically declined after the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government left power.
The PML-N leader said that dollar never surged to its historic high as did during the incumbent government’s tenure.
“Our country which is an atomic power is now being presented to the world as a begging country,” he lamented.
The Punjab’s opposition leader said at least 12,000 people have become unemployed in the automobile industry, but the government was not looking to address this problem.
He regretted that former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif served the people and now he was serving a jail term. He rebuked that sister of PM Imran Khan, Aleema Khan, had also got the ‘clean chit’ from NAB. He insisted that the PML-N had no plan to topple the government as “you will fall under the burden of your lies”.
Hamza publicly denounced the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) for formulating and implementing “ineffective” policies regarding welfare of the general public.
He asked whether the tangible change promised by Imran Khan was anywhere in sight. He asserted that the helicopter case against Khan was a test of NAB’s credibility.
“The state’s economy is on ventilator support, the public has been in befuddled state and the menace of load-shedding has returned,” he lamented.
“Khan should stop frightening us from NAB,” he said, adding that his party has not sought any NRO from the government. He claimed that PTI ministers have been lying everyday on the television. However, he warned that people would soon hold them accountable. “The nuclear-powered country has been represented as a beggar,” he said.
He further criticised the government over its two-faced approach on establishment of shelter homes on one hand and destroying many homes on the other. “How could you establish homes for poverty-stricken families when you are destroying them?” he said.
He asserted that the development budget has been reduced by over Rs 400 billion.
Meanwhile, he vowed to coordinate with the government for passing an amendment in the Constitution for the partition of Punjab.
Published in Daily Times, January 10th 2019.
