Rs 100 billion misappropriated in three years, claims Elahi

Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) senior leader Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has said that minimum Rs 100 billion have been misappropriated during the last three years in the development projects of Punjab. He challenged Shehbaz Sharif to come on any forum as to what he has done with their tenure's prosperous and surplus Punjab during the last nine years, Elahi said during a press conference at his residence on Friday.
Pervez Elahi said they will present proofs about corruption and irregularities in every project including 'jangla bus' and orange line train. The N-League has become mafia which has occupied land worth Rs 28 billion in Lahore division only, he said. "Loans of Punjab have increased to Rs 712 billion. These loans were only Rs 267 billion during our government."
He said there was no record of about Rs 1 billion allegedly spent on the 'jungla bus' and the rest of the record was also burnt in fire in the LDA building. He said that Rs 16.35 crore were misappropriated during the installation of escalators installed at 'jamgla bus' by procuring them from China instead of from Europe. Most of these escalators are non-functional and illegal excess payments of Rs 32 crore were made by quoting higher rates of different material items.
He said Shehbaz Sharif does not like welfare projects started by their government. They had initiated a project of Chirah Dam Islamabad to supply 25 billion gallons of drinking water to Rawalpindi and Islamabad having daily cost of Rs 1 billion and the land was also procured for Rs 56 crore for the said project. Because of their dilly dallying tactics, the cost of this project has now escalated to Rs 17 billion. They had undertaken special works for construction and repairs of dams and canals but their contractor had run away during repairs of Upper Chenab Canal and Trimmu Barrage project having the cost of Rs 61 crore but the contractor was made 100 percent payments. In Cholistan too, the present government's failure to continue with two development projects including Saaf Paani caused a loss of Rs 33 crore to the national exchequer, Parvez Elahi further commented.